


How to Catch a Killer

by tactfulGnostalgic (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Humanstuck, M/M, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9966086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/tactfulGnostalgic
Summary: Dave Strider isn’t the kind of kid who gets tied up in murder investigations. He’s the kind of kid who deliberately tries to avoid murder investigations, actually. He doesn’t intend to get wrapped up in the death of Skaia High School’s resident quarterback, or to be forcefully befriended by the teenage second coming of Oliver Wendell Holmes. He certainly doesn’t intend to get a boyfriend, either.Terezi Pyrope, on the other hand, intends everything.





	1. How to Start a Murder Investigation

**** Tavros Nitram is announced dead at an early morning assembly on a Tuesday in September. He washed up in the Willamette in the dawn hours, apparently drowned, with three bullet holes in his back, and although the principal doesn’t say anything, there’s an unspoken assumption of  _ murder _ that occupies the room. The town is small. The high school, smaller. And panic runs quickly through it. Death will do that to people. 

And Dave knows, with a deep and inimitable tiredness, that there’s no way he’s going to remain as divorced from the case as he’d like to. Which is to say, very divorced. He wants to stay so divorced from this murder that he and this murder ruin their children’s lives with months of hearings and brutal accusations because they’re assholes who forgot to sign a prenup. He and this case are ending a sad, short marriage that will implode in fury and flames. That’s how divorced he wants to be.

This is an ambition swiftly crushed when Terezi Pyrope shows up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, cane in hand and a grin like a carnival conman’s stretched across her face.

“No,” he says, and almost shuts the door in her face. She wedges her foot into the doorframe and whines in protest when he kicks at it.

“Come  _ on,” _ she pleads. “You know —”

“No! No. It’s ass o’clock at night, I’m not —”

“It’s ten at best,” she snorts. It’s not. It’s one-thirty.

“You’re going to get us both killed. Dead! And we’re going to have sad-as-fuck funerals, because neither of us are going to be there to talk shit about each other in the eulogies —”

“I have my eulogy prewritten, unlike some  _ chumps.” _

“The point, dude, we are so far off the point here —” 

“Oh, please,” she says, and quirks an eyebrow, and an impending sense of doom settles over him. “I thought you were cooler than that, Strider.” She adds, “I’ll go alone if I have to. I’ll jack a car if I need to. And then I’ll drive it.”

“I will not,” he insists, and then, when she just waits in silence, “I will  _ not,” _ but then the idea of Terezi Pyrope driving a car really settles in, really situates itself in his mind’s eye — and that’s how he finds himself rooting around in the Willamette River in the middle of the night with a blind girl and a dying flashlight.

He should have known when it was first announced that he was going to end up doing this. Terezi has never been able to leave a mystery well enough alone, and he’s never been able to say no to Terezi. To be fair, he’s never met anyone who’s brave enough to say no to Terezi. It may well be a law of nature that when she wants something, she gets it, consequences be damned.

The marsh she’s picked to begin her investigation is covered in blackberry bushes and foliage. A soft platform of mud slopes into the river, peppered with gnarled foliage and bordered by rows of pine trees. The sputtering beam of the flashlight casts yellow light here and there, and you slip and tumble around on the uneven ground like the opening to a horror movie by a director who hasn’t learned that shaky cam is for amateurs who can’t afford stabilizing equipment and don’t understand how to build suspense.

“I hate you,” he says, mildly, because Terezi is resting safely atop the mud hill, using one of the trees for balance. His arms are covered in thin, shallow cuts from rooting around in thorned bushes, his shoes are soaked through, and she doesn’t have a scratch on her. (Except from one on her cheek where he threw dirt at her in a moment of petty indulgence. She repaid him by grinding what might have been deer shit into his hair.) 

“I can’t help that I’m blind, Dave,” she cries, flinging her arms open. It’s entirely too innocent. “Do you want me to get down there with you? Because I will. I will risk tripping, falling, and drowning, because you are so very petty that you would ask a  _ blind _ girl —”

“You can’t drown in this, it’s like, two feet deep.”

“And I can’t swim,” she points out, and he pauses to squint at her.

“That’s bullshit.”

“It’s not!”

“I’ve seen you in water before.”

He gets the feeling she’s rolling her eyes, between her glasses. “The kiddie pool at Aradia’s birthday party doesn’t count.”

“Like hell it doesn’t count. It wasn’t that much taller than this.”

“Hmm. Fascinating point, Counselor. Could it be that a well-lighted, supervised facility full of adults, lifeguards, and several capable peers — all keeping a  _ very _ close eye on my blind ass — might have impelled me to take a risk that I might not in, say, a dark, dirty, fast-moving current with  _ one _ friend, who is most certainly  _ not _ certified in CPR, and wears  _ sunglasses _ at  _ night?” _

He chucks a pebble at her. It sails over her shoulder and misses her by a mile. “So do you,” you point out, sullenly. 

She plucks them off her face and gestures with them grandly. It’s a very  _ are-you-shitting-me _ movement. “In my case, fashion doesn’t interfere with functionality. Keep looking!”

“You’re an asshole to me. I don’t know why I hang out with you.”

“It’s because I’m the most interesting friend you’ve got,” she crows, and while she’s still an asshole, she’s a correct asshole. 

Dave met Terezi Pyrope in sixth grade. She was a little shit of a middle-schooler, explosive black curls and sharp teeth, a penchant for biting and absolutely no reservations about using her cane to its fullest extent as a deadly weapon. She’d been suspended twice, both times for bodily harm to another student; her work was always impeccable but you’d never catch her actually paying attention to shit in class. She was without a doubt the coolest kid he’d ever been at risk of shitting his pants for fear of.

She’d come over to his table at lunch and said, “If you pay me five dollars I won’t hit you,” and he’d said, “Extortion is illegal,” and then she’d hit him, and then they were friends. There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and attempted extortion and assault are two of them.

They didn’t really . . .  _ talk, _ a whole lot, insofar as you’d guess two people talked in order to have the level of familiarity that would make what she asked him to do appropriate. Dave isn’t sure that there’s any level of familiarity that would make what she asked him to do appropriate. But he figures that you don’t get a whole lot of chances to hang out with Terezi Pyrope.   

And now she’s dragging him into a murder investigation. He isn’t surprised, but he’s a little disappointed that he’s gonna die because of peer pressure. The PSAs were right all along. 

“Here’s the thing about Tavros Nitram,” she says, and he sticks the flashlight between his teeth to keep searching. He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for, except that she had told him to ‘look for clues,’ so that’s what he’s doing. Maybe he’ll find a bright blue pawprint or some bullshit. He sure as hell doesn’t know what else he’s here for.

“Are you gonna do the whole ‘case briefing’ shit?” The words are garbled as his tongue tries to force them past the plastic light. “How much do you have on him? It’s been, like, less than a day since the dude turned up dead.”

“Right here,” she points out, pounding her cane in the dirt. “Or, a few hundred yards downstream, I guess.”

He takes the flashlight out and points the beam at her, irritable. “Why the fuck aren’t we looking down there, then?”

“Because it’s basically mummified in police tape, and I don’t feel like going to jail tonight,” she quips. “And the police are looking in the wrong place, anyway.”

He snorts. “Of course.”

“Look. His body  _ washed up _ downstream, Dave. Soaking. Drowned. And the current moves —” she points with her cane — “downstream. Which means?”

“He drifted,” he suggests.

“Which means he  _ didn’t die where they found him,” _ she declares, triumphant. “He died somewhere upstream. And this is the only real bank for miles.” She grins. “Therefore?”

“He got axed here?”

“Gunshots,” she says. “Gunshots. Somebody killed him, and they did it here. The police are looking in the wrong place!” Her glee is unnerving.

He tilts his head and runs over her thought process. “And your first thought was ‘let’s return to the scene of the crime,’” he says, somewhat numb.

“Obviously. How else would you start an investigation?”

“You’re going to get us killed,” he informs her. It lacks venom. He kneels and starts poking around in the mud. It’s undignified, but at least there’s nobody to see it.

“I’m going to make us legends,” she corrects him, and there’s a lift of arrogance in her voice that he’s learned to fear. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is —”

“For good men to do nothing, unless those good men get axed by serial killers because they’re dumbasses. Chrissakes, Pyrope.”

She sniffs. “Are you going to listen to my briefing, or not?”

“Fine.”

She clears her throat and continues. “Tavros Nitram is a junior. Quarterback. Six-two, pretty beefy, kind of hot, by all accounts. Life goals: become a professional Pokémon player, take the main in a production of  _ Peter Pan.  _ Weird. Few friends. Fewer enemies. Single Dad, a brother, and a cow farm.” She taps her chin contemplatively. “Probably a weeb? Little conclusive evidence.”

“Well, fuck, how are we gonna conduct this damn investigation unless we have all the facts?”

“I just don’t know! I wanted to go through his locker for clues, but they wouldn’t let me!” Her pout seems genuine. “Interrogation of the manga club provided conflicting data.”

He chokes on his laughter. “Jesus Christ.”

“Mock me all you want, Coolkid, but I’m conducting a thorough search of his remains!”

“The kid fucking died, Pyrope. It’s not a goddamn  _ Ace Attorney _ roleplay.” There’s a moment of silence following his remark, and he experiences a brief pinch of regret. This is the way she does things. He knows it’s just the way she does things. 

Her mouth twists sourly. “I know it’s not!” 

He relents, because her levity is fading quickly and he doesn’t want to get into a genuine argument with her, especially not here and especially not now. “All right, fine. That’s fine.” He turns the flashlight away so he doesn’t have to see her face, which he doesn’t doubt is glaring at him. “Tell me what I’m looking for here, Detective.”

It appeases her and her smile’s back, quick as lightning. “They didn’t find his phone,” she says.

“So?” He’s incredulous. “So what if he dropped his phone? There’s no way we’re getting anything off it, at this point. It’s either jacked up from the water or it’s sitting happy in some rat’s small intestine.”

“First of all,” she says, “rats are carnivores, and wouldn’t touch a phone if you paid them to.”

“Why the fuck am I paying a rat to eat a phone in this metaphor?”

“Like you’ve never abused a literary device!”

“Fair,” he concedes, because he belatedly realizes he’s probably lobbing that stone from a glass house the size of Windsor Castle, and turns the flashlight on a different patch of mud to return to work. 

It’s a thankless job, and after another fifteen minutes he’s got mud caked under his fingernails so thoroughly it won’t be coming out within the next century. She’s pristine of ever, of course, and he tries not to be bitter about it. He fails not to be bitter about it.

“I don’t think we’re going to find anything,” he bites out, and sit back on his heels. “I feel like shit, and at this rate we’ve got about four hours before school, and I don’t want to be an irritable fuck first period —”

“You’re an irritable fuck anyway.”

“I’m a  _ slightly less irritable _ fuck, thanks —”

“Please? Just five more minutes.” Her frustration is evident. “I thought we’d find something by now.”

“Well, we haven’t,” he says shortly, and gestures broadly at the mud bank to proves his point. “So can I please —”

Dave slips. He falls; he drops the flashlight and lands on his palms, scraping at least two layers of skin off the top and grinding his knee into a rock. He curses, loudly, and the flashlight dies, skidding off into the dirt somewhere and hitting something with a loud  _ clink. _

“Wait,” Terezi says suddenly, and then she’s leaping and skidding down the hill, her cane carving swaths in front of her. He half expects her to help him up, but instead she leaps over him with an Olympian jump and careens off in the direction of the flashlight.

“What the  _ fuck, _ Terezi?”

“Did you hear that?” She roots around in the bushes, her hands fumbling and feeling about for something. “It was — it sounded like metal.”

“That’s what you care about? My knee could be fucked up over here —”

“If you knee was  _ actually _ fucked up, you’d be doing a lot worse than complaining about it,” she says snidely, and then sticks her hand far into the dirt, fingles waggling — “and anyway —  _ look.” _

She wrenches her closed fist from the undergrowth, fingers wrapped triumphantly around some tiny bit of steel. “Dave!” She scrambles back toward him, any facade of grace immediately lost in her excitement. Her cane whacks him in the shin as she attempts to find his body amidst the dirt, and then she drops to her knees, grime-caked fingernails scrabbling for the flashlight switch. He rolls onto his back and sits up, ignoring the flare of pain in his hands. 

“What?”

_ “Look!” _ The flashlight flicks back on, and she uncurls her fingers. A keychain sits in the center of her palm, glittering in the weak light. There’s a housekey, a car key, and a small silver bull-pendant dangling from the steel ring; the bull’s eyes are studded with fake rubies, and its horns curve out and upward at the tips like the zodiac sign. 

“Shit,” he says, because now she’s definitely not going to let this go.

“Come on,” she says, and grabs at him to try and haul them both out of the mud. He stands, letting her use him as her own personal balancing post and ignoring how her cane swings around and deals another blow to his shin. “Let’s go back to the car. This is enough for tonight, I think.” She tilts her head, considers, and then runs her tongue along the base of the silver pendant, scraping mud and leaves and God knows what else off the keychain.

“Fuck — spit that out!”

She smacks her lips and nods, considering. “Yeah,” she says. “Definitely enough.”

She more or less makes him carry her out of the woods, letting him go only once she’s back on pavement.

He examines himself in the rearview of his car, taking in filthy clothes and scraped hands and lines of thorn-cuts lacing across his bare arms. 

“This, Dave,” Terezi crows, “is the beginning of something great.”

“It’s the beginning of  _ something _ ,” he mumbles, and she must’ve caught it, because she leans over, with impeccable muscle memory, and thwacks him upside the head.

* * *

He almost doesn’t tell his friends about it. He almost manages to avoid the supreme humiliation of admitting he spent his Tuesday night rooting around in shit beside the Willamette because he, like every other member of the human species, is Terezi Pyrope’s bitch.

He would’ve gotten away with it, too, if Rose Lalonde hadn’t dropped her tray across from him and said, with a smile smug as a well-fed cat, “I you enjoyed yourself as much as the mountain lion did.”

He brandishes one very expressive finger in her face and drops his fork. “Wow, hey, look at that. Discretion: gone. Fantastic job, really excellent work. Nobody need ever fear for an abundance of dignity while you’re on the clock.”

“I was only making conversation.”

“Yeah, well, it’s shitty conversation. What if I  _ had _ fucked a cat, Rose? Were you prepared for that possibility? Were you ready to have a discussion about my burgeoning fur fetish in the middle of the goddamn cafeteria?”

John chokes on his sandwich and Dave reaches over to thump him on the back without looking.

“I was prepared to have whatever discussion needed to come of my remark. In my defense, I didn’t expect you to affirm my accusation with such readiness.” She meets his gaze evenly, daring him to look away and risk ruining his good name. She’s a fool if she thinks he will.

Jade sighs and pushes back her soup. “It was gonna be such a nice lunch,” she says, mournfully.

“Are you sure? Because maybe that’s what I’m about to do. Do you wanna get into detail about taking furry dick over lunch?”

John tries to get up. Dave tugs him back by the hood of his jacket. “You sit your ass down, Egbert, these kinds of accusations gotta happen before a jury of our grossed-out peers.”

“I really don’t want to —”

“Let’s,” she says, almost eagerly. “I’m no coward.”

“Great. Me neither.”

“Good.”

“Right.”

“Lovely.”

“Awesome. Let’s do it.”

Jade smacks Rose on the shoulder and flings her spoon at Dave. “Both of you, stop it. I want to eat lunch. Dave, let go of John, you’re gonna asphyxiate him.” 

He sighs and lets go. John gives him a nasty look and steps on his foot under the table. “Hey, fuck you, John, I didn’t ask for this conversation.”

Jade glares at both of them. “I said  _ stop it.” _

“Fine!” He lifts his hands. “Fine, fine. Look at me, I’m eating my lunch, I’m innocent as hell.”

“Innocent as hell,” Rose quips.

“Fuck you, too,” he says brightly, without missing a beat. 

They’ve got a table on the edge of the cafeteria. It’s the safest place to be; not many people come looking for trouble, around here, and if they do, they’ve got strength in numbers. John is almost six feet tall and has arms that probably outstrip a couple football players’ necks in terms of girth, and nobody really picks on anybody who hangs out with him. Survival instincts, Dave believes, can be found in even the most unintelligent organisms on the planet. 

He thinks for a second that the rest of lunch, furry accusations aside, is going to pass in peace. That’s before Terezi waltzes over, tray in hand, and hip-checks Jade to the side so she can wedge herself onto the table.

“Hi, Cool Kids,” she chirps, and leans her elbows on the table. “What’s new?”

She’s pulled her hair back tightly, to the point where it clings to her scalp, and she’s dressed in the same clothes from last night — black shirt, mud-caked jeans, a pair of boots so old Dave’s pretty sure someone used them to walk the Bering Land Bridge. Her glasses rest perilously on the tip of her nose, bright red and frameless. She wears them almost entirely for other people’s benefit, as her eyes are scarred over, and people tend to be put off by them. Dave’s only seen them the once. He thought they looked cool as shit. 

Jade obligingly pushes her tray to the right and makes room for her. Terezi blows her a kiss in thanks and steals one of her crackers. “The food’s shit today,” she remarks. It’s a fairly mild opener, by her standards. “What’ve you guys got?”

“Nothing you’d care for, I’m afraid.”

“Didn’t want your bullshit smoothie, anyway, Lalonde. Holy shit, Egbert, are those spring rolls?”

John nods and pushes the box forward. “Dad made them.”

“Do you love me?”

“Five bucks says I do.”

She gasps and presses a hand to her forehead. “You’re a gold-digger to the core.”

“Yup, that’s me. Nailed it. Do you want a spring roll or not?”

She roots around in her pocket, grumbling the whole time. “My friends,” she complains. “They’re always mooching.”

“You’re the one taking  _ my _ food,” John points out, but sets a roll on her plate and guides her hand to it. 

“Yeah, because your food is fucking good. Thanks.” She bites into it and says, around her mouthful — almost like she deliberately waited until her mouth was full to speak — “Dave and I searched a murder scene last night.”

Jade rubs her eyes. “I’m not surprised,” she says, tiredly. “Why aren’t I surprised? I really wish I was surprised.”

“Why?” Rose doesn’t seem fazed in the least. He envies her. “I assume it had to do with Mr. Nitram.”

“Yeah.” Terezi drops the keychain in the middle of the table and grins, insufferable. “Take a look at that, Ms. Lavender.”

Rose picks it up and turns it over. “I assume this has some relevance,” she says calmly. “But you must realize that to me it just looks like a keychain, so I’ll need some exposition to do your reveal proper justice.”

“It’s  _ Tavros’ _ keychain,” Terezi stresses, and makes grabby hands for it. Rose reluctantly lets it go. “It’s a clue. And a tool.”

John frowns. “So what? The police are already investigating.”

She snorts. “The last time they solved a case was when your grandmother stole somebody’s cake recipe, Mr. Baby Blues, and even that was just because the suspect  _ confessed.” _

“My grandmother never stole anything in her life!”

“Stick to the point! I’m taking it into my own hands to make sure this poor schmuck’s life is properly avenged. By whatever means necessary.”

Jade lifts an eyebrow and makes a noise of thinly veiled amusement. “How? Are you gonna go after them with a cane and a printed copy of the federal statutes on murder?”

“Whatever means necessary,” Terezi repeats delicately, and twists her fingers around the keychain. 

“What I think Jade is saying,” John adds, more soothingly, “is that you’re not really, uh, qualified.”

“Dave believes in me,” she argues. “Don’t you, Dave?”

He can feel Rose staring at him with humor in her eyes. He ignores it and pokes at his sandwich. Terezi’s right, the food is shit today. “I, uh,” he says. “I abstain from this conversation. And I thought you were gonna turn that in to the police.” 

“You didn’t think that for a second! And you can’t abstain from a conversation,” exclaims Terezi.

“Well, I’m doing it now, so I guess you can.”

“You already agreed to help me!”

He points his fork at her. He doesn’t know why they gave him a fork. It’s sandwich day. It’s a useful utensil for emphatic gestures, anyway. “I agreed to drive you to the Willamette at midnight, like,  _ once_. I’m not committed.”

“Well, yeah, but at this point, you’ve gotta justify the effort, Dave! Do you want me to  _ fail _ and go for the rest of your life knowing that you wasted an entire night rooting around in the mud for  _ nothing?” _

“Better eighty years of regret than three weeks and a swift death,” Dave replies cheerfully. Terezi frowns and slumps in her seat.

“I need  _ someone _ to take point,” she complains. “I can’t drive.”

“Not my problem. I’m not doing it,” he insists, and Rose nods in silent approval from across the table. It makes him feel somewhat better about doing this to her; if Rose agrees, it’s either a great decision or an absolutely terrible one, and he’s willing to take those odds. 

“Why can’t any of your other friends help?” John seems to feel at least as bad as Dave does. He leans forward to try and comfort Terezi. “Nepeta would be happy to drive you.”

“Nepeta can’t drive,” Terezi says, “and she can’t get involved, anyway. Her best friend won’t let her. I checked.”

“So I’m not your first choice,” Dave says, unsure whether to be offended.

She gives him a narrow look over her glasses, and although her face is turned a little to the left of him, her exasperation carries loud and clear. “No, you’re not my first choice. Is that a problem,  _ ‘kid who turned me down’ _ ?”

“Nah,” he says, with practiced nonchalance. “Just wondering how many people know about your weird little quest.”

“You and a couple of others. I made them swear not to tell, don’t worry.” Her hand closes and opens around the keychain rhythmically, and she sighs. “Okay. Whatever! Can’t say I’m not grateful for what you’ve done already.”

Jade pats her shoulder. “Sorry,” she offers. “If it makes you feel better, I’m sure the police are going to do a good job with the investigation.”

“What?” Terezi squints. “No, I’m not  _ giving up, _ Harley. I’m just resigning myself to the fact that you four are a bunch of buzzkills.” She crams the last of the spring roll in her mouth and says, “Mr. Nitram will still have justice!”

Rose frowns. “I don’t think it’s wise.”

“Your advice is noted, considered, and dismissed,” Terezi chirps. The bell shrieks. A mass movement surges towards the doors, hundreds of kids rising and charging like wildebeests on their way to murder a king or some shit.

Rose shrugs. “Be careful, then.”

“That advice is also noted,” Terezi says, and then whisks her tray off the table. “Thanks for the spring roll, Egbert, even if you’re a filthy cheapskate. And you, too, Coolkid,” she adds. “I mean, for what you did. I’ll find someone else to go through the mud with.”

“Sure you will,” he says, and she saunters into the crowd, cleaving a path for herself with her cane. 

John claps a hand on Dave’s shoulder. “Right choice, buddy,” he offers, and shakes him a little bit. “She’ll let it drop eventually.”

“Yeah.” Dave stands up. “Fuck, we’re gonna be so late.”

He watches Terezi, the bobbing sweep of her cane as it collides with someone’s kneecap, the hard set of her jaw as she bowls past them.

_ She’s not gonna drop it. _

* * *

TG: so hey  
TG: about that thing  
TG: you wanted to do  
GC:  
GC: Y3S D4V3  
GC: >:?  
TG: maybe id like  
TG: be willing to help you out  
TG: once in a while  
TG: but only because you dont have anyone else to do it  
TG: and because youre probably gonna try even if nobody helps  
TG: and i dont want your death on my conscience  
TG: shit like thatd fuck up my psyche  
TG: dont wanna give rose any more material than she already has  
TG: you know what i mean  
TG: so this is strictly for selfish purposes you got me  
GC: OF COURS3!  
GC: 4 COMPL3T3LY S3LF1SH 4ND UTT3RLY 1N4BN3G4T3 QU3ST  
GC: F13 TO 4NYON3 WHO S4YS OTH3RW1S3  
TG: aight glad were clear  
GC: TH1S H4S B33N V3RY GOOD N3WS D4V3  
GC: 1 4M V3RY TH4NKFUL  
TG: yeah well  
TG: again  
TG: totally selfish right  
TG: dont want you getting fuckin dead  
TG: dont have my eulogy ready yet  
GC: P3RF3CT!  
GC: 1 W1LL N33D YOU TO COM3 BY MY HOUS3 TON1GHT W1TH YOUR C4R  
TG: uh what  
GC: W3 4R3 GO1NG TO TH3 HOUS3 OF TH3 V1CT1M TO S34RCH FOR CLU3S  
GC: 4S YOU M1GHT H4V3 NOT1C3D H1S HOUS3K3Y W4S ON TH3 K3YCH41N W3 D1SCOV3R3D  
TG: what the fuck  
TG: im not breaking into a dead guys house  
GC: TH3N DONT TH1NK OF 1T 4S BR34K1NG 1N  
GC: TH1NK OF 1T 4S 4N UNSCH3DUL3D L4T3 PL4YD4T3  
TG: with a dead guy  
GC: W1TH 4 D34D GUY Y3S  
TG: jesus christ  
GC: YOU S41D YOU W3R3 W1LL1NG TO H3LP  
GC: >:[  
TG: fuck  
TG: okay  
TG: whatever  
TG: when should i pick you up  
GC: Y3S!!!  
GC: COM3 OV3R 4T 9  
GC: S33 YOU TH3N COOLK1D  
GC: >:D


	2. How to Break and Enter

Dave’s apartment is maybe a ten minute’s drive from Terezi’s, which means he has six and a half hours between the end of school and departure to carefully reevaluate his life choices.

Dirk’s car is gone when he gets home. It usually is. He works weekdays, and when he’s not working, he’s at one of his friends’ houses. It gives Dave a certain degree of freedom to do just about whatever the fuck he wants. It’s why he can sneak off in the middle of the night for impromptu murder investigations without his brother giving him shit.

Dave pulls onto the street beside the apartment and locks the car. The building is boxy, beige, and plastered with enough windows to belie the cramped quarters it houses. The elevator’s been out of order as long as Dave’s been alive, and the stairs are infested with spiders, but the rent is cheap and their place itself isn’t bad. Dirk got a seventh-floor apartment with two bedrooms and a kitchen — he took a week off in the summer to repaint the walls a kinder cream color than their previous neon orange, although the paint peels, sometimes — and Dave’s bedroom is right under the floor’s heating unit, which is a pain in the ass in the summer and a God-ordained blessing in the winter. The couch is soft and red. It’s not a bad place. Dave’s lived in worse.

He’s channel surfing idly when his phone starts buzzing violently.

TT: Tell me you didn't.  
EB: do what?  
TT: Dave here made the brilliant decision of inserting himself into the middle of Ms. Pyrope's love affair with justice. Like all adulteries, it is unlikely to end well.  
EB: oh yes of course, that makes perfect sense!  
EB: >:/  
EB: what happened to dave?  
TT: For God's sake. I overheard Ms. Pyrope gloating about it earlier. Aren't the two of you going out to commit felonies together, Dave?  
TT: What a first date.  
GG: dave has a date??  
TG: no  
TG: its not like that at all whatsoever  
TG: see rose this is why the pm is a beautiful thing  
TG: we couldve worked this out without all of the who what when from the gentry over here  
TG: but nah every conversations gotta be some kind of high victorian drama doesnt it  
TT: You haven't denied it. Am I to assume that she was correct in her assumption of your aid?  
TG: you can assume whatever you want  
TG: its nbd im just doing her a solid  
GG: why?  
GG: it doesnt seem like a very safe course of action  
GG: going looking for murderers actually sounds like the worst of all possible courses of action, dave!  
TG: idk im just doing her a solid  
TG: she needs someone running point and i can do that  
TG: its not like im selling my soul or some shit  
EB: uhhhhhhhh  
EB: what happened to what you said at lunch? i thought you weren't going to get involved  
TG: changed my mind  
TG: people do that  
EB: okay, but  
EB: you realize she's probably going to get in waaaaaaaay too deep with this  
TG: well thats why im here man  
TG: ill stay at a nice and shallow level  
TG: haul her out by her collar when she tries to go scuba diving in the ocean trench of justice  
TG: ill play the lifeguard to her naive ass  
TG: if anyones got the abs for it its me  
EB: pfffffffft.  
EB: *snort.*  
TG: hey  
TG: hey  
TG: hey now  
TT: I'm afraid I must concur with John's exquisitely articulated snort of incredulity at your qualifications for this maritime position.  
TT: Far more likely than your rescue of the daring young investigator is her entrapment of the witless lifeguard in her cycles of obsession, pulling him ever deeper alongside her.  
TT: And we don't have a backup lifeguard.   
TT: That's not a thing that exists.  
TG: wow really  
TG: because it seems like ive got three really persistent backup lifeguards just harping on my ass right now  
GG: harping?! i havent said anything!  
TG: actually you know what jade youre right  
TG: youre my favorite as of right now effective immediately  
TT: Oh, please. I've always been your favorite.  
TG: lies and hearsay  
EB: off topic! dave, come on, buddy.  
EB: this is dumb.  
TG: i  
TG: well  
TG: yeah probably  
GG: and that doesnt prompt you to reconsider?  
TG: harley  
TG: babe  
TG: when has something being dumb   
TG: ever   
TG: prompted me to reconsider it  
GG: >:l  
GG: i will grudgingly admit that it has never stopped you  
GG: but it should!  
GG: maybe today is the day you break that trend!  
TG: you know  
TG: every day when i wake up and contemplate the day ahead of me i ask myself  
TG: "dave is this the day you stop being a stupid asshole"  
TG: and every day  
TG: the answer is without fail  
TG: "hmm"  
TG: "nah"  
GG: oh for gods sake  
TG: believe me im just as pissed as you are  
TG: like look at this dumbass douchebag making all these terrible decisions  
TG: doesnt he realize future daves gonna have to put up with this shit  
TG: but no  
TG: past dave is just that much of a shitgibbon  
TG: doesnt even care about future daves plight  
TG: well look at me  
TG: now im future dave  
TG: and i gotta do what future daves gotta do  
TG: clean up past daves colossal shitstorm  
EB: that isn't the way timelines work, though?  
TG: shut up what do you know about timelines  
TT: For goodness' sake. Do you even have a plan for what to do if you *do* succeed?  
TT: How are you going to explain what happened to the police?  
TG: great question  
TG: and i think i will probably just have to burn that bridge when i get to it   


He mutes the chat.

* * *

Dirk comes home around 8:30, clattering around in the kitchen with all the grace and subtlety of a rutting elephant. It wakes Dave up from a numb stupor of sitcom-fueled hypnosis, and he contemplates slinking into his room to avoid interaction, but puts the ax on that particular idea when Dirk sees him. Can’t very well olley-out of a situation when the other dude knows what he’s doing.

Instead he stretches and waves half-assedly. Dirk comes over with a bowl of cornflakes and sits himself on the futon, nodding. He’s a tall dude, so he has to hunch over to fit his legs under the coffee table. Dave notices an oil stain on his work uniform and decides not to ask about it.

They watch whatever show Dave’s got on in silence together for a few minutes before Dirk reaches for the remote and asks, “You really attached to this one, bro?”

“Nah.” Dave pushes the remote away with his foot. “All yours.”

“Great.” Dirk switches it to some kind of _Stepford Wives_ period drama and sits back. Dave gives him a sidelong glance but says nothing. Whatever, he guesses. Dirk pays for the cable, it’s his choice.

“Work okay?” Dave cringes at the way the words sound — they wobble in the air, delicate and unsure.

“Yeah.”

“Uh. Anything interesting?”

Dirk tilts his head. His shades block out a huge swath of his face, making it difficult for him to emote and even harder for anyone to figure out what he’s feeling. “I had a consultation with someone who’d taken a chainsaw to their car to try and get a convertible.”

“Shit. What did you tell them?”

He shrugs. “Get a new car,” he says, and shovels a third of his bowl into his mouth at once.

“Right,” Dave says, and looks back to the television.

Another minute passes.

“Anything happen at school?”

“Uh, nah. Precalc homework coming out the ass, you know, but aside from that.”

“Precalc is shit. I dropped it.”

“I know,” Dave says, and then, gritting his teeth, “I mean, yeah, like, I know you dropped a bunch of shit. I mean that, like, you dropped it because you didn’t need it. Or some shit. I’ve gotta —”

“I get you,” Dirk says simply, and Dave’s jaw snaps shut. A wave of gratitude silences him.

An alarm goes off in his pocket. _Thank Jesus._ “Gotta go,” he announces, springing up. “Got a. Thing. With one of my friends.”

“A thing,” Dirk repeats.

“Yeah. Cool thing. Going over to their house. Just for shits and giggles, you know.”

“Cool.” Dirk’s face remains blank. “Don’t do anything shitty.”

Dave wonders if he would consider breaking and entering ‘anything shitty,’ decides the question is probably not a great one to pose aloud, and opts to vault over the sofa and make a beeline for the door in lieu of addressing Dirk’s unspoken question.

“Is it John’s?” The question is flung at Dave’s back just as he’s leaving.

“Um,” Dave says, eloquently, and then, “Yeah.”

Dirk’s mouth might have twitched, but what it meant Dave couldn’t say.

“Be back before school,” he deadpans, and turns back to the television.

* * *

Dave sits in his car for a little bit after leaving, blasting music as loud as he can, until his ears are ringing and he probably couldn’t hear a foghorn if it went off in his backseat.

Someday, he decides, he’s going to sit down with Dirk and just. Talk. Actually _talk_ about shit. Talk about shit like Dirk is a therapist and it’s Dave’s paying eight hundred an hour to dump his emotional bullshit on that motherfucker. They’re going to _do_ that shit. Probably.

Not today, though.

* * *

When he gets to her house, Terezi’s waiting outside dressed like some shitty kid’s ninja Halloween costume and he almost turns the fuck around right there.

“What the fuck are you wearing,” he demands, while she scrambles into the passenger seat.

She’s got what looks like a black scuba suit and some leather gloves, with a pair of rubber boots and a balaclava pulled over her face. A grey backpack is slung over her shoulder. The only color on her person is the same ostentatious red glasses and the cane, and although he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on about the glasses — given that he’s rocking shades at nine o’clock at night — he feels obliged to object to the top-quality bullshit that is the rest of her outfit.

“Stealth gear!” She tugs down the balaclava and beams. “We’re going snooping, I’m not going to wear anything _flashy._ What are _you_ wearing?”

“Normal ass clothes, because I didn’t think we’d be color coordinating our fucking _heist.”_

“Counterintuitive,” she sniffs, and roots around in her backpack. “But I figured you’d be unprepared. That’s why I took precautions.” She tosses him a ball of black fabric that floats past him and hits the window with a soft _thwap._

“What’s that?”

“A mask. I didn’t have any shirts that fit you, skinny asshole, but I’ll be damned if you get caught because they’ve got security cameras.” He unfolds the mask.

“You just cut a hole in a beanie.”

“I made do on short notice!” She pokes him. “Just put it on.”

He sighs, gives her a hard look, and tugs off his glasses.

“Rose can _never_ know about this.”

“Fine by me.”

“No, I mean it. I swear to God, if you so much as take a goddamn _selfie_ in my proximity when I’m wearing this shit, I am dumping your ass and bailing the fuck out —”

“Well, I just don’t know, Dave,” she deadpans. “No pictures? Doesn’t seem like a promise I can keep.”

“Oh.” He winces. “Sorry.”

“It was a joke. I make those. Drive.” She raps on the dashboard and he swats away her cane.

“Hey, hey. Treat her with respect. This car has been through shit that would make your ears bleed to hear about.”

“I doubt that,” she snickers, but cocks her head curiously. “What is she?”

“Grey Chevy pickup. Birthday gift from Dirk, he got it for cheap off one of his buddies in the shop.”

“Very nice,” she offers. Dave finishes situating the beanie in what he deems to be the least humiliating position and considers his glasses. After a moment of debate, he shoves them back on. Better the douchey look you know.

He drives as quietly as he can. She’s silent, which is a surprise; he’d assumed that her mouth ran like a broken tap when she was excited about something, but the only sign that she’s anxious is the jiggling of her knee, which she stills after a while. She doesn’t remark on the music, but he sees her nodding to it. At least she’s got good taste.

The road sprawls out before them in the shifting pool of the headlights and the darkness closes in. They rush past rows and rows of houses that settle in next to each other like ordered boxes, roof after identical roof, lawn after identical lawn. Tree after identical tree. Take a left and you’re on a new identical street; drive for ten minutes and you’re in a different part of town, rushing down a main street lined on one side by a dark and motionless park and on the other side by dim and motionless buildings. Careen past a handful of walkers and watch the shadow-blurred morphology of their faces distort in the rearview. Turn up the music a little louder. Dave can almost hear the wind over the music and he turns up the bass.

“You’re gonna have to direct me,” he says, once he’s left her neighborhood. His voice is a little rough from disuse, so he clears his throat and tries again. “I don’t know where he lives.”

It takes her a while to respond. When she does, it takes him by surprise. “You wear sunglasses, don’t you, Coolkid?”

“Uh. Yeah.” He takes a right on red and almost takes out a pedestrian. He turns down the music. “Most of the time.”

“Why?”

He rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. “Fuck, I don’t know. The aesthetic.”

“You wear sunglasses at night for ‘the aesthetic’?’’

“Yeah, why not.”

“I don’t think you’re the type,” she says frankly, and he scoffs.

“You ever met me? I’m a dramatic asshole. Of course I’m the type. I created the type.”

“You do a lot of things for stupid reasons,” she agrees, “but you’re not that kind of stupid.”

“I’m every kind of stupid. Fuckin’ try me.”

“Oh, stop it. Also, take a left on Birchwood. If we’re there yet.”

“Right,” Dave says tersely, “just passed it. One second.” He throws it into reverse and flies back on the empty road, almost killing another pedestrian. By now they’ve mostly cleared the street.

“I think you’re a bad driver,” she remarks mildly.

“I think you’re overcritical. Shut up.”

“If you like. Take a right on Russet.”

He does, although he’s halfway through the intersection when she gives the direction and it’s a tighter turn than he’d like.

“Tavros’ house is two fifty-four,” she says. “Go slow. The numbers are pretty small.”

“Fine.” He slows to a snail’s pace and crawls down Tavros’ street, squinting at the numbers printed on the mailboxes.

The kid lived in a better neighborhood than Dave had expected. The houses are tall, narrow, and perched atop staircases and slanted lawns that slope down to a brick-walled sidewalk. They’re multicolored with spotless paint and pristine, well-dressed windows set neatly into the sides, marble columns supporting modest porches and evenly spaced eaves. Most houses are close enough that the edge of the roof kisses that of the adjacent house.

Tavros’ house is close to the end of the street, a two-story burgundy complex that borders a much larger pale blue one. Dave parks on the street a ways down, figuring it’s safer not to pull up in front of the house itself, and shuts off the car. “All right,” he says, “what’s —”

Terezi’s already out the door, leaping the considerable distance from cab to street in a smooth jump. “Catch up,” she hisses.

“Okay. Fuck. No plan, all right. That’s fine. Spontaneity.” He shuts the door as quietly as he can and speedwalks after her, trying to avoid drawing suspicion. It seems like the kind of neighborhood that draws crusty old people with absolutely _no_ qualms about calling the police on just about any youthful schmuck with the audacity to be out after nine o’clock.

“Which one is it? How far down?”

“Uh. It’s at the end of the block, about fifty yards. You want h—”

“No.” She walks briskly. He has to jog to keep up.

She hits the end of the corner and rounds it, bypassing Tavros’ house entirely. She has an uncanny knack for staying in the shadows, although admittedly, the black jumpsuit might be helping her more than Dave wants to admit. From there, she leaps up onto Tavros’ lawn and starts climbing toward the side of the house, using her cane half as a walking stick.

“What are we doing?”

She snorts. “I’m not breaking into his house using the front door.”

“And — what? Why?”

“Most cameras are focused on the front door,” she says. “The back is probably much less secure! Here.” She ducks under a tree and shimmies in between the rear fence and a group of hedges clearly intended to guard the back door. Her hand sprouts through the bushes and beckons at him. “Come _on.”_

He dithers.

Her face pokes back through the hedges and she squints. “You’re not having second thoughts _now,_ are you? Because you’ve already technically broken the law, Coolkid. Trespassing is a crime. Punishable by fine. If someone inside wanted to shoot you, it’s within their God-ordained rights, at this point. Just saying!”

He stops dithering.

“I am going to end up dead,” he says, matter-of-factly, “and when I do, you had better be at my goddamned funeral to take accountability for your actions.”

She snorts and grabs his arm to haul him in the direction she wants. “If you die first, Mr. Cherry Soda, I will consider it a personal failing.”

“Comforting,” he says, although it isn’t at all, really, whatsoever, and she fits Tavros’ housekey into the lock.

“Alarms,” he says, suddenly, numbly. “Fuck, what about alarms —”

She pushes the door open, and it swings ajar in complete silence. Her self-satisfied smirk is intolerably broad. “Check out their neighbors,” she whispers. “Don’t need an alarm if you’re next to the nicest house on the street.”

“That is some fucking incredible logic, I don’t even —”

She presses a finger to her lips and steps inside.

He follows her.

The door opens into a small laundry room, a load of clothes whirring in the machine softly, and located just under the AC unit; Dave recognizes the rattle of machinery and air. Light pours in from the windows and a carpeted hallway leads in one direction; a set of stairs branch off the hallway.

“All right,” she murmurs, shutting the door gently behind her. “You’re the eyes, here, Coolkid.”

“Got it. Got it. Cool, cool. Very cool.” Dave’s heart is having none of this ‘calm under pressure’ nonsense. Dave’s heart is planning a bloody insurrection against the clearly inept leadership of Dave’s brain, which somehow figured that this would be a good move for Dave’s heart health. It isn’t.

“Is there a problem?”

“No! No. None. None at all.” He lets her take the first couple of steps into the hallway anyways. “Uh, stairs to your right.”

“Nice.” She sets her cane gingerly on the first, and then starts ascending. “How many?”

“Fifteen? No. Sixteen. Yeah, sixteen.”

“Great.” She gets safely onto the landing and beckons. He creeps after her, quiet as can be, and very deliberately not thinking about what he’s doing, which is insane, and also illegal, and also _all kinds of fucked up wow Dave what the actual fuck —_

The upstairs are a pale hickory color, sparsely decorated, with a row of white doors paneling the hall. He describes it to her with as much detail as he can, and then, nodding, she starts padding down the hallway. Her cane makes only small, soft movements; when it knocks against something, the noise is muffled, almost inaudible. She quickly withdraws it, gives the object a wide berth, and keeps going.

The door at the end of the hallway is slightly ajar. She reaches a hand out, feels for the doorframe, and then pulls Dave close. “Tell me if anyone’s in there,” she hisses in his ear, the words hardly more than a hot puff against the side of his head, and he cringes.

Ignoring the fact that his lungs have ceased functioning, most likely as an act of civil disobedience, he leans just into the room. It’s empty — a small bed with purple bedsheets is pushed in the corner, under the open window, and beside a mountain of stuffed animals. The walls are papered in videogame posters and the occasional musical advertisement. Dave steps inside and breathes freely again.

“It’s okay,” he says, and Terezi follows. Her balaclava is up. He doesn’t have the levity in him to laugh at the ridiculous picture they make.

She visibly hesitates for a moment before closing the door. “Don’t want anyone interfering,” she explains, and folds her hands over her cane. “All right. Where’s the desk?”

“Three steps left, two steps back.”

“Excellent.” She feels for the chair and situates herself in it. “Drawers, I assume.”

“Yeah.”

“Nice.” She pulls out the first and starts digging through it. “Here’s the thing about the dead, Coolkid: they have a lot to say, if you look at what they left behind.”

“Right.” Dave wanders over to the closet. He’d never seen Tavros in anything but uniform. Apparently, from looking at his clothes, it was because he spent the rest of his money on green costume pajamas and feathered hats. You think you know a guy.

“He had a brother,” she says absently. “Rufioh.”

“I’ve heard that name before.”

“Well, you should’ve. He won state three years back. The town went beserk, you couldn’t walk down the street without getting a faceful of confetti.” She grimaces. “Which I imagine was much more fun for people who could see it coming.”

“Damn.” He closes the closet. “What happened to him?”

She shrugs apathetically. “Burnout high school superstar. Came back home after dropping out of college, couldn’t get drafted, took to hanging around his boyfriend’s place and falling in with old friends. Nice kid, bad luck. Very tragic.” She doesn’t say it like it’s tragic.

“Is he home?”

“No. Out with Horuss, I checked.” She pulls out a piece of paper. He notices she instinctively runs her fingers over the lettering before she realizes it’s ink, and she hands it to him. “Read that.”

He unfolds the letter and examines it. “It’s, uh. It’s his.”

“His handwriting?”

“It’s his dumbass quirk, yeah, it’s his.”

“What does it say?” She keeps going through the drawers. A small mess is accumulating on the desk from where she’s tossed items she deems useless.

Dave skims it and cringes before he’s halfway through the first paragraph. “Oh, shit. See, this is just sad. This makes me feel like shit.”

“What?”

“It’s not, like — it’s a love letter,” he complains, and sits on the bed. “It’s — holy shit, it’s a really bad one, actually. What the fuck. Oh — you can’t rhyme ‘heart’ with ‘pert,’ you asshole, and also, gross —”

“Who’s it addressed to?” She spins around to face him, which he imagines is entirely for his benefit. “Who’s the recipient?”

“Uh. ‘V.S.’? Some girl with ‘raven black hair,’ apparently. As well as other features that I’m not going to talk about in polite company.”

Her mouth twists in disgust. “Well, that’s useless. Go into his bedside table, maybe there’s something there.”

Dave snickers. “Yeah, you know what, I know there’s something there, because he’s a teenage dude and he _has a bedside table._ I’m not touching that shit. Not for you, not for anybody.”

“Not even for justice?” The plea is mild. She’s grinning.

“Justice can suck my dick,” he announces. “I’m not touching a dead dude’s lube.”

“How do you know he has lube? What if it’s something much more exciting?”

“You’re absolutely fucking right. Revision: Justice can suck my dick, I’m not touching a dead dude’s fetish gear.”

“Boring,” she complains, but she doesn’t push it. He’s grateful.

There’s a tap on the window and he almost jumps through the ceiling. Terezi grabs her cane and she’s running for the window, as if ready to shove someone off a roof for catching her in the act, and Dave hears, in a voice that’s decidedly not Terezi’s, “What the _fuck,_ assholes!”

A girl scrambles into view. She’s solidly built, with brown skin, extraordinarily long black hair, and circular glasses tied to her head with a piece of string. Her clothes are all black, and a prosthetic hand peeks from beneath her left sleeve . She’s glaring at both of them, all while clinging to the outside of the house like a goddamned Spiderwoman.

“Dave,” Terezi says, quietly. “Tell me who it is.”

“Uh. Another kid. Probably not a cop. Don’t kill her.”

“Right,” she says, and lowers her cane. Turning to the girl on the window, she says, “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Who am _I_ — you’re both robbing Tavros’ room!”

“And you’re attempting it. Report us and you rot in the same cell I do,” Terezi says smoothly. “My question, if you please.”

“I —” There’s a noise from the hallway, and the girl’s head snaps up. “Fuck,” she hisses through gritted teeth, and then swings away from the window. “Fuck. Both of you — both of you, come on. Come _on!”_

“What?”

“Through the window, assholes, process of fucking elimination, he’s up. God, fuck, shit, damn it, fuck —”

“I can’t,” Terezi says, shrill with alarm. Steps fall just outside the door. “I can’t — I can’t go out there —”

“Why _not?”_

She brandishes her cane. “I can’t fucking _see!”_

_“Fuck,”_ the girl says, glances between Terezi and the door, and then reaches out a hand. “All right. Fuck. Come here. I’ll carry you, just get your ass out of that room.”

Terezi hesitates. There’s a step just outside the door.

She slings her cane through a loop in her backpack and vaults herself into the girl’s waiting arms, clearing the ledge in one jump.

The Spiderwoman grunts and swings back with the momentum. “You too, asshole,” she orders Dave, and he doesn’t really need reassurance — he’s already scrambling onto the slanting roof when Terezi’s through. His foot slips on the edge outside and then he’s sliding, sliding, teeth clamped together so hard he thinks he feels something crack to avoid screaming, just as the door to Tavros’ room swings open.

Someone pokes around inside. A pattern of creaking, rummaging; the flutter of someone picking up a piece of paper. It seems to take years. He’s starting to ache with the pressure of keeping still. Then the door creaks again, and whoever’s inside is gone.

Dave sighs and flattens himself against the roof. His foot is lodged against the gutter and the other’s caught a scant bit of traction against the slate. He thinks his odds of surviving the fall are decent, to be fair, but his odds of falling undetected are null.

Terezi clings to the stranger’s back like a monkey and gestures for him to follow as her mount starts working around the side of the house. The girl crawls down to the slim gap between this house and the adjacent, jumps it, and then starts climbing up the other roof. She moves like the weight of Terezi on her back is nothing.

He shimmies across the roof awkwardly and follows them, almost plummeting down the crevice between houses after a bad step. It’s almost four feet straight up to the other window, which hangs ajar for the girls to scuttle through neatly. He hauls himself up by hand and gets an arm over the sill just in time for Terezi to seize him under the shoulder and heave him into the room.

He tumbles onto the carpet in a graceless tangle of limbs. It’s nothing short of miraculous that his glasses are still with him; he didn’t know what he’d do if he’d left them there. Go back for them, probably.

The room is much nicer than Tavros’. The walls are navy, spotless, with snowy crown molding and baseboards. A canopy bed the size of Dave’s closet sits in the center of a blue shaggy carpet; a few bean bag chairs are pushed into a little nook under the window, and — Dave blinks — a _fireplace_ is set into the wall opposite the bed. It’s the nicest bedroom he’s ever seen, and he’s been in Rose’s bedroom before.

Terezi collapses into one of the bean bags without invitation and he gingerly follows suit. Spiderwoman busies herself shutting and locking the window, drawing the curtains, nudging shut the bedroom door with foot. Only when she’s put her room in lockdown mode does she round on them and demand, “All right, who the fuck are you?”

Terezi pulls off her balaclava. Dave does, too. It seems only polite. “Terezi Pyrope,” she says, and sticks out her right hand. “This is Dave.”

“Vriska Serket,” the stranger says, and grasps her hand. “Does he have a last name?”

Terezi says, “No,” at the same time as Dave says, “Strider,” and he debates whether to try initiating another handshake. He decides against it.

“Why were you in his bedroom?”

Terezi shifts and rubs at a muscle in the back of her neck. “Investigating,” she says. It’s a weak excuse and everyone knows it.

“In a dead guy’s bedroom? Please.”

“Same thing you were doing there,” Terezi says stubbornly, lifting her chin. “I’ll bet.”

“ _I_ was there to help Tavros,” Vriska snaps. She adds, seeming to reconsider, “Or as much as he can be helped, anyway.”

“V.S.,” Dave says, and an idea hits him like a freight train on a straightaway. “You’re his girlfriend?”

Her lip curls subtly. “Did he tell you that?”

“No, but his letters did.” Terezi pulls the paper from her back pocket and offers it. Dave chokes.

“You _stole_ it?”

“Nobody will notice!”

Vriska takes the paper and scans it. Her eyebrow creeps further and further skyward with disgust the further down she reads. “Gross.”

“I concur,” Dave mutters, but Terezi leans forward and ignores him.

“ _Are_ you?”

“Wouldn’t he like to think so.” She snorts and pushes it into Terezi’s hand. “We dated for, like, two weeks last summer. It wasn’t serious. I don’t know where he’s getting _this_ shit from.”

“Why were you in his room, then?” Terezi’s elbows rest on her knees and she tilts her ear toward Vriska, ever so slightly, poised and attentive. Dave’s still savoring the sensation of having a solid floor under him without risk of arrest and detention.

“Investigating,” she mimics. “Obviously. I figured that he’d have left some of his stuff behind from — y’know. Then.”

“What do you know?” Terezi looks like someone’s offered her the moon in a gilded box. “How much information do you have about him?”

Vriska’s smile is wide and smug and Dave could swear he’s seen Terezi wear its twin before. “Loads. I’ve lived next door for ten years.”

Terezi laughs, a gleeful, manic cackle that fills the room with her joy. “Oh, yes. Fantastic! Ms. Serket, this is an absolutely _beautiful_ coincidence.”

Dave feels he should contribute something to the conversation, so he adds, “She’s on the case, too. If you hadn’t, like, noticed.”

Vriska’s glance in his direction is peremptory. She’s focused on Terezi. “I noticed. Why?”

“Justice,” Terezi says simply, and folds her hands. “I’m here to act as the executor of Mr. Nitram’s vengeance, lacking sufficient institutional aid to do so through more public means.”

“She means she’s gonna break the law because it’s fun as hell,” he clarifies, and the corner of Vriska’s lips twitch.

“I like her style.”

“I had a suspicion you would,” Terezi says. “I think an arrangement of mutual disclosure would be in both of our interests.” She produces Tavros’ keychain. “Familiar?”

Vriska gives it a once-over and settles against the wall, folding her arms. “I assume it’s his. He had a thing for those animals. I never got it.”

Dave notices a magnificent spider plushie sitting on her bed and very wisely decides to say nothing.

“That’s how we got in. But as of right now, it’s all we have. Which, given that the victim’s room is lamentably clear of clues as to possible enemies, maligned persons, or even associates, is a whole lot of not much.” She tosses it up and catches it before sticking it casually back in her pocket. “And you, Miss Cornflower, have most of everything there is to know about the deceased, and no way to investigate what you don’t.”

A crease appears between Vriska’s eyebrows and she snorts a laugh. “Cornflower?”

Dave pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s her — it’s how you smell. I guess? It’s not like I smell you, or whatever the fuck — _she_ does. It’s a thing.”

Vriska, by and large, ignores him. He’s not sure whether to be grateful. She’s staring at Terezi with an intensity that he figures has got to be pretty uncomfortable. “I’m serious about this shit, Terezi. I’m not kidding around. You wanna investigate, I’m going to do that.”

“I would be disappointed with anything less,” Terezi agrees, beaming.

“All right, then.” Vriska nods, once, brusquely, and thrusts out her hand expectantly. “Phone.”

Terezi reaches into her other pocket, unlocks it, and holds it out, patiently, until Vriska gets the hint and grabs it herself.

“This is my handle,” she says, entering something on the screen. “Text me when you’re going to use those keys. Spoiler alert: you aren’t going to find anything in his room. His car, on the other hand.”

“What about his car?” Dave sits up and runs a hand through his hair. He feels like it’s later than it is; his mind’s struggling to keep up with the developments in the case. “Where is it? There wasn’t a garage.”

“Tavros’ car is in the parking lot at school,” Vriska says, with a palpable undercurrent of delight at getting to dripfeed the information. “Someone else drove him to the river that night.”

“Are you planning on letting us know that person’s name, or are you going to keep jacking off to your own internal monologue a little longer?”

Terezi swats at him. “Dave! Don’t be rude.”

“Well, I’m just fuckin’ asking, seeing as I’d like to get out of here before midnight —”

“It was Karkat Vantas,” Vriska says, glaring at him, and the name rolls off her tongue slowly. Terezi falls silent; her fingers start tapping on her knee. Dave glances between them, bewildered.

“Am I supposed to know who he is? Because let me tell you, I have a shit memory for names —”

“He’s the son of the police chief,” Terezi says quietly, and Dave sighs.

“Well, shit. He _would_ be, wouldn’t he. God forbid anything’s ever easy.”

“Shut up,” Vriska says, face pinched with annoyance. “It’s not a problem. I’ve got connections.”

“What connections?”

A pause.

“I’ll make connections,” she amends, and Dave cradles his face in his hands.

“Jesus. Jesus Christ, this was a bad idea.”

“You have a one-track mind, Coolkid,” Terezi says irritably. “Use a little creativity.”

“Creativity? Creativity won’t unmake the target of our investigation the goddamn police chief’s son, i.e., the most probable fuckin’ snitch that probability as a concept ever shat out —”

“I’ll think of something,” Vriska insists, and then freezes. Dave stills, too, but he can’t hear anything, as hard as he tries; he cocks an ear to the door.

Then, it’s there: a faint creaking on the floor above Vriska’s room, dragging and scraping across the upstairs.

“Hide,” she blurts. “Hide. Closet. Fucking _now,_ Hardy Boys. In the name of your asses’ continued existence, _move them.”_

Dave grabs Terezi’s elbow and wrenches her into the closet. Vriska slams the door behind them. He ends up wedged between the door, the clothing rack, and Terezi’s arm, with his neck shoved at an angle that can’t possibly be natural.

He’d always figured that being locked in a closet with a girl would be cool. It’s actually not at all; all he can smell are mothballs and detergent and sweat, and Terezi’s shoulder is digging into the meat of his collarbone. He decides to revise his bucket list when he gets home.

Someone yells something from the upstairs, and Vriska’s reply is muffled by the closet door: “Yeah. No — yeah, I’m going —”

A series of sharp, short words, all of them indistinguishable.

“No — no, Mom. I just, uh. I was talking to a friend.” —Then: “What do you mean? It was, uh. Fuck. It was a friend from school, that’s all.”

Silence. He can hear her mom saying something, but she doesn’t reply.

Finally, she shrieks, “Go back to sleep, if it bothers you that goddamn much,” with undeniable bitterness, and slams her door.

Vriska trudges back to the closet and slides it open. Terezi more or less tumbles out, having been balanced precariously between the door and Dave’s hipbone, and Dave follows, trying to rub feeling back into his shoulder.

Vriska slumps on the bed. “You guys are fine,” she says, quiet. “She’ll piss off eventually. Just likes to bitch.”

Terezi wets her lips, opens her mouth; then shuts it, nods, and says, instead of whatever was on the tip of her tongue, “Thanks.”

The half-smile that flits across Vriska’s face is at odds with everything Dave’s gathered about her character and it’s somewhat bizarre. “I don’t rat on my partners.”

“I like a woman I can trust,” Terezi says warmly, and Vriska’s smile grows.

“Low standards.”

“Higher than you’d think,” she replies, and Dave rubs his temples.

“If you could flirt when I’m not standing, like, right here, I would be so amazingly grateful you wouldn’t even believe —”

“This isn’t flirting, Coolkid,” Terezi exclaims. “Although I understand you may not know what it sounds like —”

“Oh, wow, did John give you that line, because I’m busting a fuckin’ gut over here —”

“All right,” Vriska says, shortly. “I think that’s all the productivity we’re going to manage tonight. Also, I want to sleep.”

Terezi nods gracefully and makes her way to the door. “Do you go to Skaia?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you there tomorrow.” Vriska opens the door and shoos Dave through it.

He swats off the hand that tries to push him and steps through himself, casting her a glare.

“Don’t touch me.”

Her hands fly up. “All right, all _right._ Jesus. Touchy, touchy.”

“Yeah,” he says, shortly, and doesn’t elaborate. Terezi’s mouth flattens into a thin line and she, hesitantly, makes to take his elbow, but doesn’t.

“Stairs are this way.” Vriska leads them down a broad spiral staircase and into the spacious foyer, which is tiled with — holy shit, marble, Vriska has to have money coming out of her ears — and walled by stained glass windows around the door. She enters a code on the alarm pad and it beeps twice, quietly, disarmed.

Dave counts fast and murmurs, “Twenty-three” in Terezi’s general direction. By the slight nod of her head, he can tell she appreciates it, and starts descending.

“You’re good to go.” She swings open the door and leans against it, gesturing to the night beyond. “And by ‘good to go,’ I mean ‘get out of my house.’”

“Not like either of us were aching to stay,” he mutters, but Terezi speaks over him.

“Thanks,” she says simply, and strides through the door with the grace of a lawyer walking away from a successful trial.

Vriska watches her with some odd look on her face that Dave doesn’t understand and kind of doesn’t want to.

“You hang out with her often?”

The question is half-earnest, half-amused, but there’s no scorn to it, so he decides to answer honestly.

“Not enough,” he says, and steps outside. “Uh, thanks. Guess you saved our asses.”

“You bet I did. You owe me a debt the size of a court order, _Coolkid.”_

_That’s_ definitely scornful, and he decides it’s time to make his exit. “Right. I’ll keep that in mind,” he lies, and trots after Terezi.

She watches them until they’re both safely inside Dave’s car, and only then closes the door. He waits until the lights in the foyer are out before peeling out of the neighborhood as fast as his engine can handle.

* * *

When he gets home, there’s a light under the door of Dirk’s bedroom that he doesn’t have the energy to investigate. It’s almost midnight and he can feel the hour injecting lethargy into his limbs.

He barely makes it to the bed before passing out. His limbs ache from climbing rooftops and his ass hurts from the fall into Vriska’s room, and his head hurts for a variety of reasons, all of them probably related to stress and confusion. Generally, he thinks it’s probably one of the worst nights he’s had. He’s a dumbass for agreeing and he’s a bigger dumbass for thinking about continuing to help. 

He gets a text from Terezi around one o’clock in the morning, and it takes three tries to decrypt her typing quirk through bleary eyes.

It’s a blurry, almost indistinguishable picture of Dave. The focus is on a random plant behind him, and the lighting is atrocious. The subject is blurred beyond belief, little more than a inhuman smudge of grey and red. But he can tell it’s him, wearing a pair of aviators over a mask crafted from a savaged beanie. It’s the kind of image Rose would give blood to have in her possession.

The caption reads,

GC: MY P4RTN3R 1N CR1M3  
GC: >B]  


He saves the picture and texts back.

TG: this is a terrible idea and youre a terrible person  
TG: but what are we doing next


	3. How to Stage a Kidnapping

Terezi wakes up around five o’clock in the morning in the middle of a pile of important documents and cans of Mountain Dew.

The ribbed lines of braille have pressed imprints into her cheek. Latula is shuffling around downstairs. The coffee machine screeches— hazelnut and chocolate, the only kind she’ll drink. Terezi’s room smells like petrified sugar and last week’s laundry. It smells like home.

She pages through the last of the documents and shuts the file. It’s barely twenty sheets thick, and most of it is haphazard sketches of her theories, which grow increasingly esoteric the longer she thinks about it. The actual evidence is less than a tenth of the file. But she likes to feel like she’s got something substantial.

She should probably go to sleep. She hasn’t had a full nine hours in weeks, certainly not since the death report. She actually can’t remember ever having nine hours, and is growing increasingly certain that the concept is a myth designed by health nuts and school counsellors.

Her arms hurt. Riding piggyback across a roof will do that to you, she figures.

She grabs her cane and goes downstairs.

Latula always uses the same kind of shampoo and washes her hands with the same kind of soap.

“Bagels are in the toaster,” Latula says. Her voice scrapes along the rungs of her throat like a rusty fan. “Coffee’s on if you want it. Mug’s on the island.”

“No, thanks.” Terezi’s hand finds the edge of the table and she sits down, easing herself into the chair. She suspects there’s a bruise on the back of her thigh and probably one along her ribcage. She grins despite it. “That’s not coffee, anyway.”

“Fuck off, it’s caffeinated bean water. It’s coffee.”

“It’s liquidated sugar, Tula.”

“And fuckin’ good, too.” Latula slurps it loudly.

“You’re disgusting.”

“ _You’re_ disgusting. You changed your clothes since last year, babe?”

“Nah.” Terezi plucks at her shirt. “Why, does it _smell?”_

“You tell me, Daredevil.”

Terezi proffers her middle finger in the direction of Latula’s voice and reaches for the fruit bowl. “Dollar in the blind joke jar.”

There’s a clink of coin against glass and Latula snickers. “Worth it.”

“Was it really?”

“You should take that jar to school. Put yourself through college that way.”

“I,” Terezi says loftily, “plan to go into crippling debt like a goddamned American.”

Latula hums in assent. Terezi picks up the knife aside her plate and uses it to slit open her banana. Fuck conventional means. Her phone murmurs something through the fabric of her pocket and she stands. “Gotta take that,” she says, and Latula makes an affirming noise. Terezi crosses to the living room and shuts the door soundly.

Text from Vriska Serket, her phone informs her.

Vriska Serket.

Tall, from Vriska’s estimation; solid, a lot of hair. Smelled like peppermint. A lot of peppermint. Terezi likes peppermint.

Terezi’s never met anyone who does the same things she does.  She’d figured that she was the only person who actually _cared_ about it — and sure, Dave was willing to help out, but she didn’t delude herself in thinking that he does it for Tavros’ sake. He’s doing it for Terezi. And that was fine by her; she doesn’t care much why he helps, as long as he’s ready to be her hands and eyes. But Vriska wasn’t doing it for Terezi. She was doing it for Vriska. It was fascinating _._

Terezi will freely admit that she’s terrible at curbing her own curiosity.

“Play,” she says, curious.

AG: Heyyyyyyyy.  
AG: It's Vriska, 8tw.  
GC: H1 V3R1ST  
GC: V3R1SM  
GC: WH1SK  
GC: GOD FUCK1NG D4MN 1T  
AG: Hahahaha!  
AG: It's ok. My phone has the same pro8lem with "T E R E Z I."  
AG: That’s how it’s spelled, right? I just assumed it was phonetic.  
GC: Y34H TH4TS R1GHT  
GC: MY D1CT4T1ON 4PP 1S PR3TTY B4D W1TH NONWH1T3 N4M3S  
GC: YOU H4V3 NO 1D34 HOW LONG 1T TR13D TO CORR3CT MY N4M3 TO T3R3S4  
AG: Saaaaaaaame.  
AG: I figured I'd get in touch to check up a8out the plan. Also, we didn't really have a chance to get to know each other last night, with Shades "Third Wheel" Strider hanging around.  
AG: Not that he's a 8ad dude or anything, o8viously.  
GC: OBV1OUSLY  
GC: H3 DO3SNT H4V3 QU1T3 TH3 Z3ST FOR 4NSW3RS TH4T YOU 4ND 1 DO  
GC: BUT TH4TS OK4Y  
AG: Certainly. A total drag, 8ut certainly okay.  
AG: Anyway, I just wanted to say that it's so *nice* to finally meet someone who actually wants to do shit a8out important things. Everyone that I know thinks I'm crazy to care a8out this.  
AG: Which is . . . not a lot of people, admittedly.  
AG: 8ut Tavros was, if not my friend, then my next door neigh8or for a lot of time! And if any8ody's going to solve his case, it's me.  
AG: Truth 8e told, I think I'm a little guilty.  
GC: WHY THOUGH  
AG: 8ecause although he was an annoying coward, I was kind of shitty to him when he was alive.  
AG: He was pretty much the only person my age around to talk to. Or at least the only kid near8y who wanted to talk to me. I don't know what it is a8out me, 8ut I tend to put off a lot of people. May8e it's the way I talk or something, I don't know.  
AG: So I'd lead him on. That's why I started d8ing him, in fact! I figured if he got what he wanted, he'd stop 8ugging me a8out it and we could just hang out like normal kids.  
AG: I'm not proud of it, 8ut hey. That's that.  
AG: So I may8e feel like I owe it to him to actually do something for him. Too little too l8, I know, I know, 8ut wh8ver. It's all I can do.  
GC: WOW  
GC: TH4TS PR3TTY N1C3 OF YOU  
AG: It's not. I'm actually a very selfish person! I'm only doing this in the hopes that I'll stop feeling so shitty a8out myself.  
AG: Hahahaha.  
GC: OH  
GC: 1 UH  
GC: 1 DONT R34LLY KNOW WH4T TO S4Y  
AG: God, I'm 8eing weird a8out this, aren't I? I'm 8eing weird a8out this.  
AG: Never mind!!!!!!!! Please just forget I said anything.  
GC: TH4T 1S PR3TTY MUCH 1MPOSS1BL3 4T TH1S PO1NT  
GC: BUT 1 W1LL DO MY B3ST  
AG: Thanks.  
AG: So, I've kind of got a question for you.  
GC: 4R3 YOU GO1NG TO 4SK TH4T QU3ST1ON OR D1D YOU JUST W4NT TO T3LL M3 TH4T YOU H4V3 1T  
AG: Hush!!!!!!!! I'm warming up to it.  
AG: I figured that since I've spilled my guts, it would 8e okay to ask you something personal, too.  
AG: That's how friendship works!  
AG: Or so I've heard.  
AG: Hahahahahahahaha!  
GC: W3LL 1 M34N MOST P3OPL3 DONT PL4N OUT TH3 4DV4NC3M3NT OF TH31R FR13NDSH1PS BLOW BY BLOW BUT YOU S33M TO H4V3 GOOD 1NT3NT1ONS SO 1M GO1NG TO 4GR33 H3R3  
GC: 4LTHOUGH 1 R3S3RV3 TH3 R1GHT TO NOT 4NSW3R 1F 1TS 4 B4D QU3ST1ON  
AG: Of course, of course. O8viously.  
AG: And I don't mean to 8e, like, shitty a8out this. So just tell me to fuck off or wh8ver if this is rude.  
GC: TH4TS WH4T 1 W4S PL4NN1NG TO DO 4NYW4Y  
GC: DONT WORRY 4BOUT 1T  
GC: SHOOT  
AG: How did you 8ecome 8lind?  
AG: Were you 8orn that way, or is it a more recent thing?  
GC: TH4T 1SNT OFF3NS1V3  
GC: P3OPL3 4SK M3 4LL TH3 T1M3  
GC: 1TS K1ND OF 4 M4TT3R OF T1M1NG MOR3 TH4N TH3 QU3ST1ON 1TS3LF 4CTU4LLY  
GC: BUT 4NYW4Y  
GC: 1 W4S BORN S1GHT3D 4ND L1V3D TH4T W4Y UNT1L 4BOUT S1X  
GC: TH3R3 W4S 4 CH3M1C4L F1R3 4FT3R MY S1ST3R L3FT TH3 G4S STOV3 ON  
GC: 1 W4S 1N TH3 TOP ROOM  
GC: UH  
GC: L3T M3 KNOW 1F TH1S 1S G3TT1NG W31RD  
AG: No, I'm fine.  
AG: Unless you don't want to talk a8out it.  
GC: 1M PROB4BLY OK4Y  
GC: 4NYW4Y 1 H4D TO G3T 4 LOT OF SK1N GR4FTS  
GC: YOU C4NT GR4FT 1N N3W 3Y3B4LLS THOUGH  
GC: H4 H4  
AG: Haha.  
AG: Can you see anything at all?  
GC: NO  
GC: MY PUP1LS 4R3 S34L3D SHUT  
GC: TH3R3S R34LLY NO W4Y FOR M3 TO P3RC31V3 V1SU4L D4T4  
GC: WH1CH 1S JUST F1N3  
GC: 1 M34N 1 4CTU4LLY TH1NK 1TS N1C3 NOT TO H4V3 TO LOOK 4T TH1NGS SOM3T1M3S  
GC: 1 NOT1C3 4 LOT OF TH1NGS TH4T OTH3R P3OPL3 DONT  
GC: 1T 4LSO H3LPS W1TH S3NSORY OV3RLO4DS  
AG: So is it just . . . all 8lack?  
GC: NO  
GC: 1 DONT KNOW HOW TO 3XPL41N TH1S  
GC: BUT TH1NK OF 1T L1K3  
GC: YOU C4NT S33 B3H1ND YOUR H34D  
GC: 1TS NOT TH4T YOU S33 BL4CKN3SS B3H1ND YOUR H34D THOUGH  
GC: 1TS TH4T YOU L1T3R4LLY DONT H4V3 4NY V1SU4L D4T4 FROM B3H1ND YOUR H34D  
GC: S331NG BL4CK 1SNT TH3 S4M3 TH1NG 4S NOT S331NG  
GC: 1TS JUST L1K3 TH3 B4CK OF MY H34D 1S 3V3RYWH3R3  
GC: 1F TH4T M4K3S S3NS3  
AG: I mean, I don't really understand it.  
AG: 8ut it makes sense.   
GC: W3LL  
GC: TH4TS OK4Y  
GC: YOU DONT R34LLY N33D TO 1 GU3SS  
GC: WH4T 4BOUT YOU  
AG: What a8out me????????  
GC: YOUR H4ND  
GC: 1TS 4 PROSTH3T1C 1SNT 1T  
AG: Yeah, it's f8ke.  
AG: Lost my arm in an accident a couple of years ago. My mom paid for the 8est prosthetic on the market and some Grade-A opi8s.  
AG: It's pretty 8adass. I can sense pressure and heat and everything. I could juggle china with this 8a8y!!!!!!!!  
GC: V3RY N1C3  
GC: 1 C4N 4DM1R3 SOM3 F1N3 PROSTH3T1C WORK WH3N 1 F33L 1T 4ND YOURS 1S 1ND33D H1GH QU4L1TY  
GC: WH4T W4S TH3 4CC1D3NT  
AG: Oh. It wasn't even that important, I'm em8arrassed to talk a8out it.  
AG: Just some asshole with a car and a lack of respect for common rules of the road. I'll spare you the graphic details.   
GC: BUT 1 L1K3 TH3 GR4PH1C D3T41LS  
GC: >:[  
AG: Well, I don't!!!!!!!!  
AG: Anyway, the point is that I have a totally radical prosthetic arm and it's cool shit.  
AG: Can we jump to the part where we stop talking a8out it?  
GC: Y34H SUR3  
GC: L3TS T4LK 4BOUT K1DN4PP1NG  
AG: Yes!!!!!!!! Oh, man. I have so many ideas. This is going to 8e soooooooo sweet.  
AG: 8etween you and me? Karkat Vantas is so fucked.  
GC: H3LL Y3S H3 1S  
GC: >:]  
AG: >::::)  


* * *

Here are the things Terezi knows about Karkat Vantas:

  1. He’s the son of the police chief. He has a brother, who found God and ran off on a mission last year, which is the closest that their town ever came to a scandal. (It’s a pitiful scandal.)
  2. He’s unreasonably secretive. His social media presence is almost nonexistent, and he’s selective with the people he lets on it. He’d turned down every one of Terezi’s thirteen friend requests.
  3. He’s kind of an asshole.



The last one she gathered from talking to other people who knew him, who all seemed to have genuinely good things to say about him, but none of whom could vouch for his temperament. Terezi gleans from this that either Karkat Vantas is a murderer or a very, very interesting person.

* * *

Terezi sits by herself at lunch. She can hear Dave and Company a few tables down, but joining them would be dumb, given that they don’t know Vriska and she’s got shit to do, anyway. No offense meant to Egbert, but she can’t exactly go over plans for a kidnapping when he’s across the table. None of them would snitch, probably, but Terezi is a selective risk-taker. No need to create needless dangers.

Vriska meets her halfway through lunchtime, when Terezi’s starting to contemplate that she’d never show.The peppermint smell is muted amongst the funk of a hundred high school students crammed into close quarters, and the hot plastic of the computers. A strand of her hair drifts across Terezi’s cheek and Terezi brushes off the skin absently.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Terezi waits.

“Uh.” Vriska’s fork scrapes against her plate and Terezi cocks her head, sniffing.

“Are those fries?”

“Want one?” A paper carton is pressed into Terezi’s hands and she lifts it to her nose, taking another whiff. It smells like crisp oil, and warm, well-cooked potato, and probably like God’s tears.

“ _Hell_ yes.” She grabs a handful and pushes back the container. “Where’d you even get food like that?”

“Stole it,” Vriska says casually, and Terezi pauses in lifting a fry to her mouth.

“From a kid, right?”

“From the _cafeteria_.” It’s undeniably smug. “They keep the best shit in the back. Get in there before lunch starts, it’s all there for the having.”

“Did you . . . pay for it?”

Vriska laughs, a hard, three-syllable exaltation of disdain. “Nah. Those rates are robbery.”

“And you just. Took it.” Terezi sets down the handful of food and narrows her eyes. “Vriska —”

“Look,” Vriska blurts. Her knee is jittering and now and again bumps Terezi’s. “Look — do you know how much food that cafeteria wastes? Daily? Twenty _pounds_ of food. You gotta have enough food for everyone, but not everyone _orders_ it, so they’re just throwing out pound after pound of like, decent food — if you’re gonna give me shit for saving twelve ounces of food from the garbage —”

“Shut up,” Terezi says, relaxing. “I was just wondering.” She pops a fry into her mouth.

“Didn’t sound like you were ‘just’ wondering,” Vriska mutters, but doesn’t otherwise object. “Where’s your entourage?”

Terezi stabs a thumb behind her. “With his people.”

Vriska’s twisting movement to see him bumps the table again. Terezi considers asking her to stop. It’s making her milk spill, and hot dogs are much less appetizing when marinated in milk. Not to say that she hasn’t done worse.

“Did I ever tell you,” she says mildly, poking at the meat, “about the time I tried to make spaghetti with apple juice?”

Vriska pauses and drops back into her seat. “Doesn’t sound _that_ weird.”

“No, no. I didn’t drink apple juice with spaghetti. I boiled up some apple juice and cooked spaghetti in it,” Terezi clarifies. “It wasn’t as bad as you’d think, actually.”

“That sounds awful.” Vriska sounds elated. “I’ve tried to cook naan in an EZ Bake before.”

“On purpose?”

“Mom wouldn’t let me use the oven and I was hungry as shit.”

“Tell me it worked.”

“Turned out as hot flour soup. Got Mom to pay attention, though, so I’d say it did its job.”

“Nice.”

“Meh.” Vriska crunches two of the fries between her teeth and chews loudly. It’s kind of gross. “I don’t really cook.”

“Me neither.” Terezi hesitates, then adds, “Made the apple spaghetti one night when Latula was home late.”

“Latula?”

“My sister. I live with her.”

“Oh, shit. She normally home late?”

“Yeah. Her job — she’s a barista, so she works late. Got a job on the other side of town. Usually doesn’t get home until I’m sleeping. Supposed to be, rather.”

“Huh.” Vriska taps her knife against the table. The soft tinkle harmonizes with the beating of her knee. Terezi starts to suspect that Vriska just doesn’t do sitting still. “My mom’s always home. Kind of jealous.”

Terezi’s silent.

“Fuck. I didn’t mean that. In that way. Shitty of me. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Terezi says.

“No, really, like.”

“It’s fine. Shut up about it.”

“Good. Good.” Vriska’s knife stills. “Say — you know, if you ever wanted, like, someone to help out with shit —”

“I don’t need anyone to ‘help out,’” Terezi says, trying to be gentle. She doesn’t think she quite gets there.

“No, no, no, yeah, of course you don’t, fuck. Like, just wanted to offer. Not to do shit for you, but to maybe — chill. Or whateverthefuck.” Vriska’s swallow is audible and Terezi feels for her. Second-hand anxiety hits her like a brick to the stomach. “After school, today. Like, we could work on the case, or some shit.”

Terezi contemplates. “I don’t have anything after school,” she says, at length.

“Great. Yeah, me neither.” Her relief is palpable. “So, uh. Can I stay at yours? For case related stuff, I mean.”

“Fine by me,” Terezi says, and Vriska exhales.

“Thanks, man.”

“No problem.” Terezi reaches for another fry. “So,” she says, wiping her hands of grease. “How do you know Tavros?”

“I told you.” Vriska is hesitant. “Used to date.”

“No, I mean, how did you _meet_ him? You must have known him, to have this kind of interest in his case.”

There’s a soft _thump_ and their trays rattle. Vriska’s just dropped her head on the table. She groans plaintively. “This is embarrassing, holy shit.”

“Now you _have_ to tell me, you realize.” Terezi leans forward and cradles her chin in her palms. A grin stretches itself across her face. “Is it really bad?”

“Not _that_ bad. But it’s still ‘don’t fucking tell anyone about this’ bad.” Vriska sighs. “I met him playing D &D.”

A gleeful snort-laugh rips itself from Terezi’s throat. “You _did?”_

“I _said_ I don’t know a lot of people! It wasn’t _that_ bad, anyway. He kept trying to get people to play with him and he came across the rooftops one day, and, y’know, I figured, whatever, right? He had a couple of his friends rounded up for it and I texted, like, the one guy I knew who I thought would be interested, and we’d play sessions on Saturday nights.”

Terezi’s face hurts from smiling. “Did you DM?”

“ _Fuck_ no. That’s a loser’s job. Aradia DM’d.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Who else went, if Aradia showed up?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. I stopped going after he started making gooey eyes at me, I wasn’t going to stick around for that shit. A dude named Sollux, sometimes this asshole named Eridan. Tavros’ older brother would come pitch in sometimes, but he was always terrible and he’d break character all the time.” Vriska sounds more invested than she probably means to and Terezi finds it hilarious. “Anyway, again, totally not important and really embarrassing and holy shit, I can’t believe I’m even telling you any of it.”

“It’s cute,” Terezi offers, and Vriska is shocked into silence.

“Oh.”

“Used to play online with some friends,” Terezi adds. “I was _Neophyte Redglare.”_ She cackles. “Can you imagine? The sheer pretentiousness.”

Vriska’s laugh is hesitant, but genuine. It sounds nice. “I was _Marquise Spinneret Mindfang_. You don’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Jesus. Really?”

“She was a magical fortune-telling alien spider pirate.”

“Holy shit.”

“She was very cool.”

Terezi takes a bite of the milk dog and says, “Redglare was a badass swordswoman lawyer with a huge psychic pet dragon who hunted down pirates for breakfast.”

“You’re making that up to make me look bad.”

“I am _not.”_

“We should’ve played together,” Vriska enthuses. “We’d have _killed_.”

“Should’ve,” Terezi agrees, and steals another french fry.

* * *

They meet Dave in the parking lot five minutes before the bell’s supposed to ring. He strolls up ten minutes after they’d agreed to meet, whistling, and in no apparent hurry at all.

“Apparently,” Vriska says icily, “when Strider hears ‘three o’clock,’ he interprets it as, ‘three ten, three fifteen if you’re feeling leisurely.’ Fascinating.”

“Glad we’re straight,” Dave says smoothly. “Hi, Terezi.”

“What’s up, Coolkid?”

“Nothin’. Still going along with your crazy ass plans, so. Haven’t learned my lesson yet.”

“Cold will be the day in hell when either of us learn our lessons,” Terezi promises, and he snickers. Dave never _laughs,_ really, and it’s not for her lack of trying. The most she can get out of him is a weak chortle, and once, on a miraculous occasion, a high-pitched cackle that he quickly swallowed. She doesn’t know why. He’s one of the funniest kids she knows that doesn’t ever laugh.

“Here’s the deal,” Vriska interrupts, and draws them both back closer towards the edge of the parking lot. They’re camped out behind a row of trees to the south edge of the school, lining the senior parking lot. Terezi can hear the faint thunder of students swarming from the entrance and towards their waiting cars, rushing to avoid the bulk of the stampede. “Karkat drives a black jeep. He’s parked right there — that’s just to our left — and he’s gonna come out in about thirty seconds. When that happens, Dave, you’re gonna get him by the arms, and I’ll get his keys, keep him from driving off. Terezi, you — well, if you can, nab him with your cane or something, like, just get in there and do some damage —”

“Will do,” Terezi says, dryly.

“I don’t remember volunteering for ‘assault son of the figurehead of local law enforcement’ duty. Terezi, do you remember me volunteering for that?”

“Not assault, technically,” she mumbles. “If there’s physical contact involved, it’s battery.”

“Wow! Fuck me sideways, I’m such a rube. God forbid I confuse those two vital distinctions.”

“Well, one’s a considerably larger fine.”

Dave sighs. “All right. All right. Here I am, look at me, I’m agreeing. Just call me Dave ‘Commits Battery In the Name of Justice’ Strider.”

Vriska grabs them both and hauls them forward. “That’s him.”

Dave makes a quiet noise that Terezi figures is either surprise or disgust, or maybe a little bit of both. “Short, isn’t he?”

“What did you expect? His dad’s five six, police officers don’t have height requirements.” Vriska’s voice is clipped and makes a decent effort at being professional, but it’s professional as mimicked by someone who’s never heard it.

“I dunno. Dumb, now that I think about it.” There’s a crackle of knuckles and he says, “So we’re just tackling the poor fucker?”

“Wait for him to get into his car, obviously. We’re not rooting through his pockets. We’ll wait until it’s open to drive him out.”

“This is, like, _really_ sketchy. I hope you realize that.”

“Sorry,” Vriska apologizes snidely. “Next time I’ll plan a kidnapping with _integrity.”_

“Guys,” Terezi says patiently. “I can hear him.”

And she can. Footsteps draw closer. Someone mumbling to themself under their breath, indignant and hot.

“Shit. Dave, down.” A rustle of clothing, a low, mildly inconvenienced grunt and the thud of a body against metal; Vriska must have pushed him. She passes Terezi and steps into the parking lot.

The car unlocks and the Karkat approaches the driver’s side. The door opens, something’s tossed into the back and thuds against the far door. Terezi’s tense. She _thinks_ she’s pretty well-covered — hidden behind the line of trees, and wearing pretty neutral colors — but maybe he’s a good spotter. Maybe he’ll catch her and it’ll all go to hell.

Then there’s a loud yelp and someone’s flung against the car, and there’s rapid, hasty footsteps. Terezi rushes forward despite herself and catches an elbow to the jaw. She then darts around the other side of the car and flings herself into the passenger seat, slamming the door. The driver’s side door opens and shuts quickly, too, and Vriska throws the car into reverse. “Strider,” she yells, and there’s a grunt. Somebody gets punched in the stomach, and Terezi’s pretty sure it’s Dave, but he manages to tussle Karkat into the backseat and haul the door shut, somehow, so she can’t be too worried.

The car’s sudden motion stirs the remains of Terezi’s lunch. She clings to the door for dear life as Vriska tears out of the parking lot. The engine howls like she’s got her foot flat on the accelerator and Karkat’s swearing, loudly and creatively, in the backseat. His voice sounds like a tenor with a bad head cold and Terezi’s _certain_ he’s swearing in languages she’s never heard of. It’s damned impressive.

“Fuck,” Dave complains, and the seat belt clicks. “He clocked me in the goddamn neck.”

“If you’d been faster, he wouldn’t have,” Vriska reasons, and he makes an anguished noise.

“It’s not my fault —”

“Kidnapping is a fucking crime,” Karkat snarls. “I swear to fucking God, whatever you’re planning, you assholes are going to jail for so long your grandchildren are going to wonder what it’s like to live outside a cell —”

“You always get this mouthy with your kidnappers, Mr. Vantas?” Terezi leans on the divider between the seats, lets him get a good look at her. “Please. We only want to talk.”

“Bullshit. You could’ve talked to me in the parking lot, instead of _stealing my fucking car.”_

“Chill, dude,” Dave says, completely missing the tone of the conversation, as per usual. “We’re just taking you for a ride. That’s all.” He lifts his voice. “Where are we taking him, anyway?”

“Terezi’s place,” Vriska says casually. “If that’s okay with Terezi.”

“Sure. Dave knows how to get there, he can navigate.” She rolls her shoulders, grins. “I work best on my own turf.”

The car smells of pine tree air freshener and something uniquely Teenage Boy, and the drive back to her house seems to take a little longer than she expects it to, given that Vriska drives like a ballistic missile. Karkat shuts his mouth when they’re out of sight of the school and refuses to say anything, even when Dave tries to ply him with small talk. He seems set in believing they’re real kidnappers. Terezi suspects that it’ll be up to her to persuade him not to sue. She racks up the charges in her head: kidnapping, assault, battery. Probably fighting words, she hadn’t listened to what Dave was saying. There’s a case to be made for psychological trauma, although not one she’d take.

She decides that it’ll be their own excellent fortune if Karkat decides not to sue.

* * *

It takes them five minutes to get back to her house. Terezi is the first one inside, and she leaves the door open for the others. “Soda’s in the fridge,” she says. “Snacks are in the pantry. Bathroom’s down the hall. Make yourself at home.”

Her guests trundle in behind her. Vriska wanders into the kitchen, the clack of her boots against the tile audible even from the living room. The faucet turns on and Terezi assumes she’s getting water. Dave collapses on the sofa with a groan of pain and Karkat sits gingerly on one of the armchairs.

Terezi kicks her feet up beside Dave and slings her cane across her lap, twisting to face Karkat. She reaches into her pocket and starts her recorder.

“All right,” he snaps. “What the _fuck_ am I here for?”

“The murder of Tavros Nitram,” Vriska chirps, lingering in the kitchen doorway. Karkat chokes in aggravation.

“Are you shitting me?”

“No,” Dave mumbles, “that’s the worst part, you know, we’re _not.”_

“I don’t have a fucking clue who any of you are.” He pauses. “Wait. Actually,” he says, “I know _you._ You’re Tavros’ shitty neighbor, aren’t you? Yeah.” Hostility drips off his words. “I remember you.”

Vriska’s surprise registers in her lack of immediate response. “Well, of course you’d remember me,” she says, layering smugness over shock. “I tend to make an impression.”

“Like a fucking anvil leaves an impression, yeah.”

Terezi sighs and waves her cane like a disciplinary tool. “Both of you! Quiet. I’m trying to orchestrate an interrogation and neither of you are acting like professionals.”

Karkat’s laugher is mocking and ugly. “Professionals? You’re kids.”

“As are _you,_ Mr. Strawberry Balm. Off your high horse, now, the view isn’t very nice up there.” She leans forward. “We just want to ask you a few questions, anyway, and then you can be on your merry way. Even to tattle on us, if you want.”

A petulant quiet. “I don’t have any classified information,” he says at length. “I don’t know what you think I know, but I don’t get anything, they don’t tell me anything. Just because my dad’s a —”

“This isn’t about your dad. This is about you.” Vriska moves closer. “You were driving Tavros on the night he died.”

Silence.

“How do you know that,” Karkat says, his voice low, and Vriska sniffs.

“You think you were subtle? You were right up on his curb the night he died, I could see him walking down the stairs. He invited me to go _with_ you.”

“Wait,” Terezi says, lifting a finger. “What?”

Dave whistles, low and long.

“And you turned him down. Almost like you knew something was going on,” Karkat bites out.

“Almost like he _framed_ it like a _date_ , and I wasn’t interested,” Vriska snaps. “Stop changing the subject. Where did you take him?”

“He invited you _with_ him?” Terezi points at Vriska. “And you didn’t tell us?”

“It wasn’t relevant! What would it tell you about the case besides that he was interested in me, which you knew already?” Vriska’s irritation rises with the pitch of her voice. “And anyway, it’s Karkat that agreed to go. He knows where and when and how Tavros was last seen, it’s up to him.”

Terezi grits her teeth and turns back to Karkat, resolving to talk to Vriska about _appropriate times for disclosure_ later. “How much have you told the police?”

Karkat shifts on his chair. “I haven’t told them anything,” he admits, begrudgingly.

“Nothing?” Her jaw hangs agape. “Your dad’s chief —”

“And he doesn’t know anything. And he doesn’t need to.”

“Don’t you want to catch this kid’s killer?” Dave pipes up, flat and mildly irritated. “You’re gonna let him turn into a cold case and let a murderer run loose because you’re scared to get involved?”

“Hey, hi, yeah, _fuck you_. Last person to see the victim is an immediate suspect, asshole, and no, I don’t want to become a prime fucking suspect in a murder investigation where my dad’s top detective. Fucking sue me.”

“Refer to point B, murderer on the loose —”

Terezi pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers and decides that in the future, when she needs someone to drive her around on a murder case, she’ll give a wide berth to Dave Strider.

“Tell us where Tavros was going that night,” she says, patiently, “and why.”

Karkat sighs and slumps back against the chair. “Fuck. Fine. But you leave me alone after this, all right? And you don’t breathe a fucking word of it to the police.”

“Leave the cops out of it,” Terezi agrees amiably. “You got it.”

“He was going camping.”

A deafening silence hangs in the room after the words.

At length, Vriska barks out a harsh laugh. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. I know that it sounds like I am, but believe me —”

“You expect me to believe he was taking a fucking _camping_ trip the night he was murdered?”

“I don’t expect you to _believe_ it.” Karkat’s tone is defiant. “I expect you to think I’m bullshitting. But it’s the truth. He left some of his gear in my car, you can check if you want.”

Dave groans, flops back on the sofa. “Yeah, I saw it. I don’t know if he’s telling the truth, but there was some shit in his trunk. Looked like a sleeping bag and some kindling. I mean, he could totally still be bullshitting you about it, but.”

“Yeah, no shit. It’s his ugly goddamn stuff. You’d catch me dead before you’d catch me camping.”

“And you left immediately after dropping him off?” Terezi arches an eyebrow and does her best to look impassive, despite the fact that they’re finally _getting_ somewhere, if nowhere fast.

“I tried to get him to come back. I argued with him. He wouldn’t come. And I was gonna stay with him, but —”

Vriska interrupts. “You didn’t wanna implicate yourself?”

“Let him fucking talk,” Dave snaps, surprising everyone in the room.

“I mean, Jesus,” he adds, seeming to notice the sudden attention being paid him. “We went through the trouble of getting him here, let him answer your goddamn questions.”

Karkat makes a soft _hmph._ “Thank you, strange asshole.”

“It’s Dave.”

“Fucking enchanted.” Karkat clears his throat. “Anyway. I was gonna stay with him, but my dad wanted me home, and he wouldn’t come with. Seemed like it was something he did often.”

Terezi rises and approaches. The illusion of a height advantage is a powerful thing in questioning. Of course, he probably knows that. He probably knows a whole lot about detective work. She reins in her jealousy. The things she could do in his position.

“How often?”

“I dunno. Like, twice a week.”

“And did anyone come with him during these trips?”

“No. Well — no, actually, Aradia might’ve come with him once. Or his brother? But they weren’t regulars. He’d usually just go out, and — fuck, man, it was so fucking pathetic. But he said he liked it. Being outside. Alone. I told him that was creepy as fuck, but, whatever, you know, right, everyone has a hobby. Better than sitting around inside playing Pokémon by yourself.”

Vriska shifts with distinct discomfort behind her, and Terezi ignores it. She cannot be distracted. This is the crux of the investigation.

“And why did he call you to drive him this past week? Why not his usual ride, who presumably escorted him on all other occasions?”

Karkat’s clothes rustle and she can taste his discomfort. Not literally, obviously. More like a metaphorical discomfort, that which is glaringly apparent but not technically tangible; although if she had to give it a taste, she’d probably say black coffee.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Do you have an unconfirmed suspicion, then?”

“I think his brother was out of town. He can’t drive himself, you know, he failed his test, felt so goddamn bad for him. Had that anxiety disorder, you know, fucked him up on tests.”

“Don’t we all,” Dave rhapsodizes, somewhere in the background, and she flails her hand at him in a brief _shut-the-fuck-up_ gesture.

“Tell me, then, Mr. Vantas,” she says, treasuring the tension of the moment. This is her bread and butter. Adrenaline and curiosity are at their peak before satisfaction, and it is indisputably, in Terezi’s modest opinion, the best high in the world. “Who do you think might kill him?”

A sharp, angry noise tears itself from Karkat’s throat. “I don’t fucking know! I don’t have a damned clue, and it scares the shit out of me, but that’s the truth. Are you happy? Do you have enough information to carry on this goddamned suicide quest? Can I go?”

“You have to have some kind of clue —”

“I barely fucking knew the guy, I was a friend of a friend and he didn’t know anyone else with a car. That’s all. And I feel bad as shit for him, but I don’t think that makes me qualified to — to go around pointing the finger at who might’ve done it. I don’t know why you guys are prancing around like you’re some kind of Junior Police department, acting like Hercule Poirot and his merry company of shithive criminals, but leave me the fuck out of it. I’ve told you everything I fucking know.”

His voice talks faster and louder the more agitated he gets. Terezi folds her hands over her cane and presses on, undeterred.

“Au contraire, Mr. Vantas. I believe you _think_ you’ve told me everything of importance, but by no means have you told me everything you know.”

“Big fucking deal!” The scrape of chair against floor alerts her that he’s standing up, and she takes three quick steps backward. 

“I want to be done,” he says. It’s flat and cold. “I’ve played along with your bullshit. Let me go, or I _will_ fucking snitch on you. You have no idea how generous I’m being, not whipping out my phone right this fucking second and giving you all extended vacations to juvie.”

It takes Terezi all of half a second to register it as a threat and snap, “And I tell your father where you were on the murder night and you’re arrested for obstruction of justice.”

He is still as stone.

She shrugs and lightens her tone. “Or you’re not,” she says pleasantly. “And your father still never trusts you again.”

She leans back. The room is silent. Terezi Pyrope has the floor.

Karkat breathes heavy. Then he mutters, “Fuck this,” and takes off for the door — but it’s the back door, not the front one, leading out onto a short patio and a few square feet of grass. He slams the door behind him. The resulting shudder runs through the floorboards and makes the glass vase on the table wobble. She can hear him pacing on the deck outside, the occasional muttered curse. Nobody else says anything.

At length, Dave mumbles, “Shit, Terezi,” with a low note of disapproval that rubs her the wrong way. She opens her mouth to defend herself, ask him how _he’d_ do it.

But Vriska beats her to it. “You have a better idea for getting him to cooperate?” It’s aggressively defensive, daring him to say a contrary word.

“I —”

“No ideas, no opinion. It’s Terezi’s call.” Vriska backs away, sidling toward the kitchen. “You wanna go to juvie, Strider?”

The answer is short and dispassionate. “No.”

“Well, good, because Terezi just saved your ass from it. Show a little goddamn gratitude.”

“Vriska,” Terezi says softly. “That’s enough.”

“Hmph.” Still, she accedes, and refills her water. Ice from the dispenser clatters around the glass. Everything is too quiet. Terezi’s house is never this quiet, not even when she’s alone in it.

“I’m going to talk to him,” she says suddenly, and pivots. “Wait here. Don’t come out.”

“Uh,” Dave said, and she waves a hand, silencing him.

“No. I mean it, Coolkid. Don’t.” She turns over her shoulder and adds, quietly, “Trust me.”  

“Fine. Don’t be an ass, though.”

“When am I ever,” she deadpans, and sidles out onto the patio.

Karkat’s making quick work of his quest to walk a rut in the patio. Fast, squeaky steps patter up and down the short length of her back porch. She shuts the door behind her and taps her cane on the boards. It makes a noise just loud enough to break him from his concentration and alert him of her presence. It’s a practiced move. Most people react to it, even unconsciously.

“You’re a delusional,” he begins, and stops. Begins again: “You manipulative little —”

“What you’re about to say is nothing I haven’t been called before, Mr. Strawberry Balm, but I get a little less patient every time someone tries. Now is not the day to find out how much patience I have left.” She bites it out quickly, louder than him, with more force. It shuts him up.

“I’m not gonna apologize,” he says sullenly, but he doesn’t continue the thought, and the unspoken apology lingers between them. She takes it.

“I don’t expect you to apologize.” She takes a step closer, a careful step. “I expect you to help.”

“Because you’re blackmailing me into it,” he snarls, and it’s an ugly sentence, and she resents the very implication that what she’s doing is anything less than ethical. Everyone knows the saying: you can’t make an omelet without robbing a few mother hens of their potential children.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” she corrects him. “And because you’re more brave than scared.”

He’s quiet for a while. She gets the feeling that he’s doing some melodramatic bullshit, like staring off across the rooftops of the neighborhood. She’s heard that people love to do that in the middle of important conversations, God knows why.

“You’re fucking weird,” he says at length, and she smiles.

“You think that’s revolutionary commentary?”

“I think,” he says slowly, “that I want to know what you want me to do, exactly.”

She shrugs. “Help. In any and every way you can.”

He scoffs in amusement. “And what’s that, to you? Information? Stealing evidence? Perjury?” When she doesn’t answer, he continues. “What’s enough for you, Junior Miss Detective?”

“It’s Terezi,” she says. “Terezi Pyrope.”

“All right. What’s enough for you, then, Terezi Pyrope?”

She lifts her chin and performs a melodramatic stare of her own. Of course, he can’t see through her glasses, but the effect is there. “I’ll figure that out when I get there,” she says.

Then she laughs snidely at her own remark. “God, don’t I sound pretentious!”

“You just grilled me like a fucking steak in tacky ass red sunglasses. I’d say a bit of pretentiousness is earned.”

She cocks her head in mild surprise. “Karkat! You’ve got a sense of _humor!”_

“Most do,” he says dryly, and she punches his shoulder. Short he may be, but he’s got a layers of _something,_ be it muscle or fat, beneath his rough jacket. He’s got a weight to him, Karkat Vantas. She decides that she likes him.

“You will help,” she announces. “Not because I’m making you, although I am, or because you’re terrified of how much I know, which you are. You’re going to help because I’m the only one who’s going to believe you when you say you didn’t do it.”

She touches her glasses a millimeter higher on her nose. She has the floor again, but it’s a more casual possession. She’s no longer performing for an audience; the thrill is replaced by the quieter satisfaction of a job well done, an argument well made. “And we, as of right now, are the only ones willing to vouch for your innocence.”

“A douchebag, an asshole, and a wannabe lawyer. My life is fucking saved.”

“My team is well-selected.” She declines to mention the selection procedures themselves, which were haphazard, she will freely admit.

“I’ll help,” he grumbles, and a grin splits open her face. “But you get on the wrong side of the cops, you’re going under the bus so fast you’ll win a posthumous prize for limbo.”

“An agreement I can live with,” she says, and sticks out her hand. “Shake on it.”

He shakes her hand quickly and pulls away quicker. “Don’t make this weird. I’m just doing it because I don’t wanna go to jail.”

“Sure.” She opens the door, lets it swing back before he has the chance to get through. It pays to remind your subordinates of where they stand in subtle ways.

Vriska and Dave are still in the living room, breathing loudly and determinedly not-talking _at_ each other, a feat she’d find impossible with anybody besides those two. She whacks her cane on the wall to draw their attention for her announcement.

“He’s cooperative,” she declares cheerfully. “And I count this evening as an unqualified success.”

“Goddamn, you make everything sound like a fucking event. I’m not making a blood oath to you fuckers.”

Dave snorts. “Might as well be. She doesn’t let you go, dude. Ride or die.”

“I see he’s really internally motivated by this whole ‘pursuit of justice’ thing,” Karkat remarks, and Terezi flails a hand at him.

“Quiet! I have the floor. Karkat, you’re free to leave if you want. Wait.” She digs her phone out of her pocket and tosses it to him, unlocking it in the process. “Put your number in there. I’ll get in contact when I plan to stage the next phase of our investigation.” It sounds like he catches it — there’s no shattering of glass and hardware, anyway, so she thinks he probably does — and she directs her attention to Vriska, who by her estimation is hanging out somewhere near the coffee table. “Vriska, you can stay. We’ve got things to talk about.” Do they ever. Terezi’s head is spinning with the new information, the new possibilities unfolding before her like a thousand branching fractals. They’re magnificent possibilities. Curious possibilities. Compounding opportunity upon opportunity that _dizzies_ her with the options they have for advancement — oh, tonight had been _wonderful._

“Nice.” She’d be deaf not to hear the relief.

“What about me?” Dave’s complaint is half-hearted and somewhat sarcastic, but there’s just enough sincerity to give her pause. “Why am I never part of the plan-making?”

Vriska laughs under her breath and inhales to make some undoubtedly cruel remark, but Terezi beats her to it. “Would you like to be?”

“Well, I — fuck, I don’t know. Guess I’d like to know what’s happening before I’m supposed to do it, but that’s just, like, a preference.”

“You can stay if you want —”

“No, yeah, no, I’m not fucking tone-deaf, you two can have your weird alone time. I’m just saying, like. Make a group chat or something, goddamn.”

“Great idea. We’ll get on that.”

“Aside from that,” Dave says, obviously as relieved as anyone to be exiting a conversation that turned far too serious far too quickly, “uh, I don’t mean to bitch about this, but I live about ten miles away. And I left my car at school after the whole, uh, incident. So I don’t know if you plan to —”

“Karkat can take you home,” Terezi says brightly, “can’t you, Karkat?”

“I’m not a fucking taxi service.”

“Of course you’re not. If you were a taxi service, you’d get paid.” She inclines her head to him. “Let me rephrase. Would you pretty, pretty please take him home, Karkat?”

Dave sighs. “There’s a joke about innuendo in there somewhere, you know, like, a really, really good one, but for the love of God I’m too fucking tired to pull it out. So I’m gonna drop a ‘Phrasing’ and call it good. We good with that? Good.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Karkat says, mildly. “But I’ll drive him. Even though he punched me in the stomach.”

“You got me in the _fucking neck,_ dude! We are _so_ fucking even on that front.”

“Excellent.” She moves to the front door and holds it open for them. “In that case.”

“Hospitable,” Karkat grumbles, but he walks fairly briskly out the door, handing her the phone on his way out. “Come on, Dave.”

“Aight. Catch you later, Terezi.” A brief snap, which she can only assume is Dave making finger-guns at somebody, and then they’re both gone, and she shuts the door behind them.

She takes a moment to breathe in the resulting peace, and then turns to Vriska. Her mouth hurts from smiling.

_An unqualified success for Team Justice._

“So,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “I have to make a couple updates to the case file.”


End file.
